Surrendering Dreams
by plecostomus-of-justice
Summary: The sequel to Starbase 53  A Life In Chains. The continuation of the story  same AU applies.Please read Starbase 53 first  this story may not make sense without it!
1. Chapter 1

_Oblivion_

_At night the moonbeams snap._

_The stars are suffocated._

_That maligned, unhappy barn owl_

_Screeches out its grief._

_The old train on the tracks_

_Hurtles to its destruction_

_Wheezing out its last breath._

_And I? I send my thoughts beyond these walls_

_Day in, day out, from dawn to night_

_(From dawn to night, day in, day out)_

_I dream the endless daydream,_

_Dream the endless journey_

_Through the night, fretting,_

_Champing at the bit;_

_The one I call for does not come,_

_The one I wait for never appears_

_Ah, if I could only stop the_

_Thinking, seeing, hearing, dreaming..._

_I wouldn't feel a thing_

_Zargana (1988)_

Freedom was sweet, that was the truth. Being able to decide what to eat and when, being able to walk from one end of the shuttle to the other were simple luxuries. I felt lightness, a happiness which had not been there for thirteen years. For the first time in all those years, I could see the universe in colour, not shades of grey.

But we all knew it would not, could not last as it was. Disabling the Defiant had bought us some time, but we could never clear Federation space in a stolen Starfleet shuttle. As terrible as it sounds, the war, even ten years over, brought us some advantages. Space had never been the same as it had been before the war. Starfleet was no longer invincible, there were more independent worlds, worlds which now believed that the best way to safe was to remain small, remain no threat. Isolationism was everywhere, and this isolation enabled us to continue.

It was not easy, though. A Starfleet shuttle listed as stolen, three men aboard with no currency to speak of. We bartered skills to get by, Kim and Chakotay mainly fixing engines and computers in return for safe passage, skulking from system to system, slowly moving out of Federation space, towards the Badlands.

As we got closer, the situation worsened. We were barely sleeping, always keeping watch, being more and more reckless with our piloting to escape. Thanks to Kim's incredible skill, we were able to hide in low orbits, in magnetic fields, in nebulae, everywhere. But we all knew it was a matter of time before we would have to fight, destroy or being destroyed. And somehow, even though we were all fugitives, all held prisoner by Starfleet, all renegades with our Federation citizenship revoked, the idea of destroying a Starfleet ship was unconscionable, disgusting. We had all seen enough death and destruction, none of us wanted to be a part of it.

It was Chakotay who finally brought the matter to a head.

"We have to get rid of this ship. It is attracting too much attention"

He announced as he sat at the Conn, fingers poised ready to initiate yet another set of evasive manoeuvres at a moment's notice.

He glanced up at Kim

"Kebron IV?"

Kim smiled his usual twisted half-smile

"At least if you get another bottle round your head we have a doctor to fix you this time"

Chakotay snorted.

I stood, feeling excluded from the conversation. I had never heard of Kebron. I guessed they were talking about a bar, but I was at a loss as to the significance of this. Kim must have seen this from my face, as he turned to me

"Refugee planet"

He offered as an explanation.

"Lots of desperate people, lots of unsavoury people taking advantage. If we need a ship, we can find someone at the bar there."

"What do you mean 'Refugee Planet'?"

I asked, quietly.

Chakotay sighed.

"During the war, many isolated planets were set up as refugee camps. Some of the larger ones still exist, mostly abandoned by the powers now, they carry on functioning for the people who are too frightened or can't afford to get home."

And so we went to Kebron. What I saw when we arrived horrified and angered me. I had always thought that by imprisoning me and people like me on suspicions had been a sign that Starfleet had sold its soul, but when I saw Kebron, I realised that my treatment was irrelevant compared to that metered out to so many innocent, desperate people.

As we came into land at the Sanctuary Spaceport, all that was visible beyond the boundaries of the landing strip were shanty towns. Stretching in every direction across the dusty plain, these small shelters perched, interspersed with fusion reactors, solar generators and recycling plants. Kim and Chakotay barely seemed to notice, but I could not take my eyes off the squalor and deprivation.

I followed Kim and Chakotay into a small bar, not far from the spaceport. Chakotay was straight down to business, moving straight to the bar, buying drinks, beginning to talk. Kim and I made ourselves as comfortable as possible in a secluded corner of the bar, and it was not long before we were joined by Chakotay and an unpleasant looking part Orion.

"I would give you three bars for it" muttered the Orion

"Three bars? For a fine, almost new ship! You could buy wreckage with that, my friend, but not a ship fo this class. Fifteen bars?" Responded Chakotay

"Pffft. Five bars or nothing. Who knows where this ship came from?"

"Are you questioning my honour, friend?" Chakotay sounded a little more threatening this time.

"You know, there are rumours about a stolen Starfleet ship floating about. And your ship does have the look of the Federation about it."

Chakotay was silent for a split second, and in that split second our downfall was made.

"It is not a Starfleet ship" he replied, after pausing too long. "We got her from a trader on Denobius, but we need something a little more long-range"

Kim realised it was lost, that we had been caught out. He prodded me, hard, and gestured discreetly to be ready to move. The prod caught my startle reflex, and my ever-present phaser shaking, and made me jerk harder than usual, hitting my knee on the table. All present turned to look at me, and the Orion assumed a particularly vicious expression.

"You know, there is also a rumour about escaped prisoners. The Federation are paying hansomly for their return. There is more profit there than here. Maybe I need to place a transmission."

He rose to leave, but Chakotay grabbed him hard, holding him in a choking grip.

"I wouldn't do that, friend" He whispered. "You'll be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life waiting for..."

At this, he drew his finger slowly across the Orion's throat, the threatening action causing the Orion to pale visibly. Chakotay dropped him onto the floor as we all began moving out of the bar. As soon as we cleared the threshold, we ran.

"We have to lose that shuttle tonight. I don't trust that Orion at all" Chakotay panted.

I stumbled blindly after them towards the spaceport. I vaguely wondered why we were going back to the port if we were abandoning the shuttle, but I had no breath left to ask the question. I used to be fit, healthy, able to run. Now I puffed and panted, struggling both to breath and not to fall over.

Once in our shuttle, as Kim readied the departure sequence, I was finally able to ask.

"Where are we going?"

"Kir'tana, on the other side of the planet. Where the really desperate ones live. The ones who put everything into getting out, absolutely everything"

Kir'tana. Literally "Graveyard" in the Imshi language which seemed to make up the majority culture on this planet. I wondered what the name implied, what sort of graveyard we would find.

When we arrived it was not as bad as I had feared. Hot, dusty and uncomfortable yes, but the real horror I had half expected to find was not visible. I saw why it was called Graveyard though. Surrounding a primitive spaceport were the hulks of various ships in different states of repair, some flyable, some hulks. Others nothing more than shadows of burnt wreckage in the distant hills. We surely could find a ship here.

We found our ship. But in doing so, we sold another portion our souls. Or I did, anyway. I think that Kim and Chakotay were past caring. How? How did Starfleet officers fall so low, come so far? Had I, in all that had happened since DS9? Would I now fall as we attempted to escape? Would freedom take the soul I had never let imprisonment take?

The ship was one of the mediocre ones dotted around the edge of the spaceport. Not in great condition, but not a hulk either. Chakotay first noticed it, noticed the huddle of dishevelled children sheltering below one of its stubby wings. It was a medium sized freighter, warp-capable. Old, but not too old, it looked perfect for our needs. And just in time too, surely it would not be long before Starfleet or bounty hunters found out we were here.

It was parked on the edge of the crude landing strip, a medium freighter with a small shelter constructed below one stubby wing. I had not given it a second look when Chakotay and Kim had pointed it out originally. Later I understood why they had chosen that ship, it was anonymous, looked repairable and most importantly, the people sheltering below it were children, they looked frightened and wary. Naïve, easy to deal with, to manipulate. I suppose you do what you need to do to survive.

Chakotay started the conversation with the oldest child, a boy of about fifteen, ragged and wary.

"Is this your ship?"

"Hmm, what of it?"

"It's a nice size. Good storage. But it doesn't fly?"

"No,"

"But you want to get out of here? You want it to fly?"

"Yes"

The conversation continued and I watched, amazed, as Chakotay charmed the boy into agreeing to swap the freighter for our shuttle. He seemed to exude an air of trustworthiness, which I envied and respected at the same time. I could see flashes of the skill which had enabled him to be so successful in the Maquis and with Kim, a man clearly on the edge.

Kim was clearly reluctant to lose the shuttlecraft, he was fighting some sort of inner battle, knowing it was essential but realising that it would put the technology he craved out of reach. Eventually, he walked away. I considered following him, but a look from Chakotay stopped me. Instead, I joined the Native American with the children, finalising negotiations. The youngest child looked terrible, pale and sweating, every so often coughing a soft but obviously painful cough. My heart jumped as I saw a telltale orange rash spreading out across her hands - Terosian Pika Flu. A common complaint amongst children, easily treated in my clinic back on DS9, but without treatment, without shelter, warmth and food, this child would die. She had weeks maybe.

I could not stop myself. I stepped in, spoke up

"Your sister is sick?"

The oldest boy froze.

"What of it? You want her as well as the ship?"

I felt like I had been slapped in the face. What did he mean? Then I realised, he thought I wanted her as part of the deal, he clearly thought this was the catch he was expecting from a straight swap flying ship for non-flying ship.

"No, no" I stammered, horrified.

"I am a doctor" It had been many, many years since I had last used those words. "I can help her"

He glanced at Chakotay, who nodded, then he pushed the small girl towards me.

For a split second, I froze with nerves. A real live patient, after so long. I had spent many hours in Starbase 53 going over case histories and hypothetical treatments in my mind, but I had not really ever thought I would see another patient again. And here she was.

The nerves soon dissipated though, as I could finally assess her. The tricorder readings were classic, Pika flu. It hadn't changed in the years I had been out of practice. The treatment involved several hyposprays, but was quick. Myceliacin for the virus, Beta-oxygen for the cough and hypoxia and Litamapin for the rash. Within five minutes her breathing had improved, and by the time our belongings had been moved out of the shuttle and the oldest boy had done a crash course in flying the ship, she was fit to leave.

I watched them take off and leave the atmosphere, only slightly less steady than an experienced pilot. Much better than an average cadet would manage. That was slightly reassuring.

It was only much later, when we were in the freighter inventorying the necessary work that the elation of my first patient left me and the reality dawned. We had sent a group of children off towards Federation space in a shuttle associated with three fugitives. I was in the engineering space with Chakotay when I said, partly to myself.

"What will happen to them?"

"What?" Chakotay's voice was muffled by the access panel he was reaching into

"What have we done to those children? What risk have we put them in?"

Chakotay withdrew from the panel and looked at me for a long time.

"Doctor, we've done them a favour. We have saved their lives. Why do you think I chose them, there were plenty of other ships around and many people who would have bitten our arms off to have that shuttle, even guessing at its history? So why them?"

My answer of

"An easy target"

Seemed hollow after that response.

"No. Think about what will happen. The shuttle will be picked up on a ship's sensors, which will detect five non-human lifesigns. They'll probably beam a security team onto it, find the children. I know the Federation has changed, but they still haven't sunk so low as to leave five sick children in a Starfleet shuttle drifting in space. They'll be rescued, be warm, fed, get medical care and either have help finding their parents or be taken into Federation care. You saw the littlest one, the one you treated. She may have recovered from Pika Flu, but if she stayed here, something else would get her. This way, we can try and save her."

It was a long speech from a man who didn't seem to speak much any more, and it was a speech full of logic. But I couldn't shake the feeling that we had endangered these children, that we had exploited them for our own gains.

Being a fugitive is about exploitation, I was soon to learn, however. We exploit them, we are exploited. We are all desperate people; it was a whole new world I had never seen before. A seam of desperation crossing the universe. You can't make a grounded ship fly without help, and on a world like Kebron, you can't get help without taking it by force or selling yourself to get it.


	2. Chapter 2

At first we could secure everything we needed through barter and knowledge. The ship was not in the best condition, but it was fixable and with Kim and Chakotay's engineering skill, it was ready to fly in next to no time. Which was a relief for all of us as the bounty hunters were clearly on our tails. Chakotay, who had done this before, occasionally crept off alone into the seedy areas of Kir'tana, sniffing around, finding out how much time we had. He never told us what he learned, and I was relieved. Whilst I did not have the horrible panic reaction that Kim did to the idea of re-capture, I would be lying if I said that the idea of returning to 53 did not send a shiver of terror down my spine. I was thankful that Chakotay chose to carry that burden alone. I don't think I could have worked so hard or with so much focus if I knew how close we were to capture.

About a month after we had first got the ship, Chakotay came to ask me. Ask me to play my part in our continuing escape attempt. Asked me to sell a little more of myself.

"Doctor, we need Deuterium. This ship barely has any and we don't have enough credits or Latinum to buy any, not here"

"What can I do?" I replied, puzzled

"The Administrator has agreed to fill our storage units in return for some work"

Chakotay was clearly uncomfortable. He knew he was making a difficult request

"He wants an operation. You would have full access to the port's Medical Facilities to do it, and in return he'll fill our deuterium and antimatter tanks. Basically, he wants a genital enlargement. He's human, which might make it easier. I know this will be hard on you, but without this we can't get off the planet. I don't want Harry to know, it would terrify him, but they are closing on us. They found the children in the shuttle, they know the organic matter we beamed into space wasn't us. The children told them everything. We have to get out of here and soon."

That was how I found myself standing in the cramped, sparse medical facilities of Kir'Tana, enlarging the penis of a grossly overweight, corpulent man. One of those humans who makes themselves fat on the misery of others, those humans who we all thought had ceased to exist, but somehow the war brought back. He had made his profit off the poor and the desperate, he had exploited them continually to ensure his rule. And here he was, exploiting another desperate.

I know it was essential for our survival, I kept telling myself this as I manipulated the Dermal Regenertor and laser scalpel. But as I looked around the medical facilities, and thought of all the sickness which remained outside, the children dying of K'tarian measles, Tarelian fever, even straightforward N-Influenza, I felt so bitter about the waste. First of all, that I was wasting myself and the small amounts of medical equipment on this hellhole of a planet completing such a pointless operation. That I had sunk so low to be here, cutting away at some fat, insignificant man's penis whilst outside, children were dying of diseases which had been cured in the 21st century. I felt angry as well, and my anger spread from anger at the situation, to a more general fury at the state of the galaxy. How had Starfleet let it come to this? Why had I been destroyed when so much needed to be done? Why was the only doctor living in this huge settlement a fugitive, rather than a member of Starfleet Medical's Emergency Response Team?

I was bitter. I had always been angry about what had happened to me, who wouldn't be? But I had never felt so bitter about everything that had been lost until I could see it. There was so much to be done and so little opportunity. I had been doing a lot of reading since arriving in Kebron, and what horrified me was how Starfleet and the Federation had regressed. Things could never go back to the way they were before the Dominion War, but I had hoped they would be better than this.

The Administrator got his "enhancement," though I felt sick to my stomach doing it. The weight that had appeared around my heart when we gave our shuttle to the children, knowing it would make them a target, doubled in size. I could never go back to the person I was, I had finally done what I had strived not to do, exploited the weak, wasted their medical supplies in pursuit of my own freedom, my own gain.

Chakotay sensed my upset and anger, however. I can certainly see how that man could command the loyalty of a crew, how he could inspire the Maquis, then the Voyager crew, then Harry.

"You did a good thing, Doctor" he said to me late one night when I was working on the last of the electronics in the cargo bay.

I glanced up, a disbelieving look upon my face.

"I took advantage of the weak to gain something for myself" I said simply

"And others." Chakotay reminded me "You think Harry could survive another imprisonment? You see him, he's carried with him the death of the Voyager crew for fifteen years. He didn't kill them, but every night he sees them in his dreams. You have saved him."

"What about you? You were there too" I asked. I realised as I said it that it sounded like an accusation, and regretted that instantly. Chakotay's face clouded and a pained expression flickered across his stoic countenance

"I hear them, every day. Every day I wish it could have been different, every day I wish I could change it. But I'm not as desperate as Harry." He paused

"No, that's not right. I risked everything to send the slipstream message back in time too. I am as desperate, but I don't feel as guilty about Voyager. What happened happened, it was not anyone's fault, or everybody's fault. After all, we all worked on the Slipstream. But Harry will carry it with him until the day he dies. They were his family and in his mind, he killed them all. I have lost my family before, three times now." He sighed. "But it is hardest the first time, and that is what Harry is facing."

Shaking his head, Chakotay changed the subject

"I know that you feel that you have betrayed something by operating on the Administrator, but you haven't. You have saved someone who was desperate, you have given them hope."

I listened and heard the wisdom of his words. But I still felt guilty for betraying my profession, my calling, if you like. It was not the first time, it would not be the last, however. Though I could not help but find it ironic that one of the reasons I was locked up was that Internal Affairs believed I was sympathetic to the Dominion for treating the Jem'Hadar, even though it went against was good for myself, but it was only when I escaped from their prison that I actually started using medicine to promote my own self interests.

But we got our fuel and got away from Kebron intact, though it took some interesting manoeuvres on Harry's part to get us clear of the Starfleet ships that were moving in on the planet. Maybe we had done some good for this world, if it was so out of contact, so far away from the recovery efforts, that Starfleet's presence may alert them to the problems and start fixing them. After all, I could not imagine any Starfleet doctor being able to leave the children of Kir'Tana or Sanctuary to die of childhood diseases or be exploited by the strong.

All this was beyond my control, the only thing left was to carry on into the night. And so began our rootless existence.


	3. Chapter 3

At first we just needed to get away. We made short hops from planet to planet, taking on supplies, trading and most importantly gaining intelligence. We learnt where Starfleet was, where they would no longer go. What was most shocking for me was finding out exactly how many worlds had been consumed by the war and that recovery had taken, was taking, so long.

I was also amazed that Internal Affairs still cared. The war was over, surely there were more important things to be concerned about? Chakotay and Kim had lost everything that they could have used to change the timeline again and the Dominion were not likely to be an issue any more, surely any questions over my loyalty could be answered now?

Chakotay insisted we went to some of the old Maquis worlds, he said because he still had friends there. I always wondered if there was more to it, however. His words about losing three families had stuck with me, and I had noticed that, though he was not as demonstrative and destructive in his grief as Harry, it still burned within him. I watched from a discreet distance as he walked the battlegrounds where his friends had died, walked the deserted, derelict bases where they had planned, fought and died. A desperate, meaningful death manning their barricades against an enemy vastly superior to what they had previously faced. The sense of death was still in the air, so many years later. Most of these worlds, all those where the base had been the only occupation, were grey and dark, suffering from the artificial winters generated by planetary bombardment and atmospheric manipulation. I could only imagine the terror of crouching in one of these bases, firing hugely inadequate weapons at the Jem'Hadar ships, whilst watching the sky turn black and feeling the planet buck and shiver all around as it loosed its own surface into the atmosphere.

During all these excursions, Harry would sit on the loading ramp of the ship, swinging his legs over the side like a child, working obsessively on his Slipstream calculations. For me, it would depend on my mood. In the abandoned places, I would walk around, careful not to intrude on Chakotay's private grief, but anxious to rekindle emotions within myself. Sometimes it would go too far, and the flood of despair and loss would be too much. My loss, their loss, the loss of everything in the galaxy, it felt like sometimes. I stood in one bunker, under one livid sky with dirty yellow clouds flitting across the murk and remembered. All the worthless death, Jadzia and Dax, all of those trapped in the Dominion prison camps that couldn't be rescued when Captain Sisko joined the Prophets and the Wormhole was collapsed, the Maquis who were betrayed by everyone and left to fight alone to the bitter end. I sat in the lonely bunker and sobbed like a child for everyone who was lost.

That day was a catharsis for me, or maybe the change came about as we began visiting planets with people still on them. The children were thin and their parents ragged and desperate, but at least they were alive. Many seemed to know Chakotay and were pleased to see him, they welcomed us with whatever small hospitality they could offer. At first I felt incredibly guilty, taking from these people the little they had. I tried to refuse, to eat as little as possible and to shy away from the gatherings that surrounded us when we landed. It was Chakotay again who spoke to me.

"Doctor, I know this is hard for you, but you offend them by ignoring them. They are poor and have very little, but they are proud."

He pushed the ship's medkit into my hands.

"You can do something for them. Take it, help them, then accept their payment with good faith. We need them on our side if we are ever going to survive."

So treat them was what I did. Whenever we landed on one of those poor, destitute worlds, I would seek out the colony medical staff, usually one overworked nurse, and volunteer my services. The knowledge I had gained performing "Frontier Medicine" in the Infirmary on DS9 served me well. In the few days Chakotay elected to stay on a world, I could complete a vaccination programme for the children, at least stopping them from contracting the worst diseases of poverty. I would stay in the medical facilities for fifteen, eighteen hours in a day, performing operations, testing samples and treating illness. The phaser shake was a problem, but not nearly as bad as I had first feared when we had escaped. I could compensate, adjust, adapt.

I was finally achieving what I dreamt of throughout those thirteen years in 53. I was practising medicine, I was helping and healing. People were pleased to see me, they didn't care who I was or what I had been, they only cared that I could help them and I did so. The only thing that ate away at me the whole time was the feeling that I could not do enough. And so I forced myself to do more, to reach more people at every stop. I realised I was becoming more like Harry than ever, with his deep, obsessive concentration. We were all obsessive, the three of us. I smiled wryly to think of it. Three madmen adrift in the Badlands!

Those days had to come to an end, however, and all too soon, they drifted into the dust alongside so many other happy memories.

"We need some money. We need to keep this ship fuelled" Harry announced one night as we were all sat on the makeshift bridge.

Chakotay grumbled but nodded his agreement,

"We are almost down to a quarter of a tank of deuterium. It's enough to keep us going, but it is not enough if we need to make a quick getaway."

Harry and Chakotay looked at each other, a meaningful look.

"We might need to go back to carrying people" Harry began, carefully.

Chakotay looked less than pleased at this prospect.

"Hmm, remember what happened last time we allowed refugees on our ship, on the Flyer, when we were gathering the last of the resources before setting out for Voyager?"

Chakotay and Harry both briefly shuddered at the shared memory.

"But we could keep them in a cargo bay; make it up with bunks and space for some medical facilities. That's if you don't mind, Doctor?"

I thought about it for an instant. We were going to become people traffickers, but at least if we got people off the worst of the worlds, it would be a good thing. And there was the chance to help them as well.

"No," I replied. "I don't mind at all."


	4. Chapter 4

It was interesting, that much was definitely true. We spent our time moving between the planets of the old DMZ moving people, transporting those who could pay or trade. The people were fascinating, after so many years surrounded by the same bitter faces, it was world-expanding to meet people with real dreams, real ambitions. So many people would come to the improvised sickbay and talk about their plans, their plans for their children. How they were going to rebuild their old world, how they were going to travel back to Fedration space. How they were going to live. After having spent so long living in a limbo state, not alive but not dead, to hear them was like being reborn.

These little hops across this quiet area of space made me realise how much had been achieved in reconstruction since the end of the war. Away from the carnage of the old Maquis bases, it was amazing to see how many places had recovered from the decimation which had occurred under the Dominion. The majority of our customers were people who bought passage every few months or so to see relatives on other planets. The war and the subsequent turmoil had meant that many people had made new lives on the refugee planets they had arrived on. The old colonies were broken, but a new, strong network appeared to be building on these worlds. Always outlaw worlds, they were now even more determined not to be tied into any alliances with anyone except themselves.

I could understand and empathise with that feeling, and experiencing their raw desire for independence. When I had first been thrown out of Starfleet then worse, out of the Federation, all I wanted was to be able to rejoin them. Over the years my feelings had changed. I was still angry that I had been unfairly and illegally expelled from both organisations, the difference was I no longer wanted to go back. How could I go back when i had been so callously discarded the first time? These people were the same, they were still angry at being abandoned, left to face the Dominion advance alone, but no longer willing to trust anyone except themselves and their immediate peers. Their attitude was so refreshing, such a relief.

The only issue to tarnish this time was the presence of the bounty hunters. It was incredible to me that still, in the 24th Century, Starfleet was willing to use bounty hunters to find us. Harry and Chakotay took it as normal, apparently this had happened to them as well. Had I been alone, I am sure they would have found me. I just didn't have the same sixth sense that Chakotay did in detecting their presence, and several times we would have to leave quickly, hoping that there were no small ships on our tail. Chakotay used to joke that these incidents were useful, reminding us that we were fugitives and stopping us from getting complacent on these lovely, welcoming worlds.

I know that people transporting was exploitation to some degree. Before the war, they could have travelled freely via one of the many legal shuttle services which served this area. But now, the only source of transport for those who did not have their own ship, was to pay people like us to transport them. The only thing I could say in our defence was that we were some of the best, we did the best for our people as we could. We gave them medical aid if needed, we moved food sometimes for nothing, we flew them safely and well. We never extorted more money out of them, unlike several of the Ferengi transporters. I suppose we earned our fees and used most of it to keep the ship going. It was a satisfying, trouble free life, which maintained a low profile for us and kept the Federation off our backs.

One other thing nagged at me, however. I still believed and practised my belief in the Prophets, I still prayed when I could, still marked the rituals associated with the Bajoran religion. There was one thing I had not done as part of this, though. I had not been to Bajor to notify Laren's family of her death, I had not brought the ritual flame to them to light the Duranja for Ro Laren. It was something I very much wished to do. Laren had saved my life in 53 by her sheer force of personality, carrying me along when all I wished to do was lay down my burden and finish it all. She had died so I could live, and I owed it to her to see her sacrifice marked.

Of course, without access to the Starfleet database, finding the information was a slow, difficult process. I had not realised how reliant I had been on databases, computers and isolinear chips until I had to find the information the old-fashioned way. One of the advantages of being a doctor, though, is the willingness of patients to confide, to provide information freely, without demanding payment or profit. On a simple transport mission between Galat Prime and Akasuki III an old Bajoran man made his way to the sickbay. Something in his voice, his manner made me suspect he had some connection to the Maquis, and the scars he came to have treated confirmed it. I sensed that I would never have this opportunity again and asked him directly.

"Sir, did you know a Bajoran Maquis called Ro Laren?"

The man shifted slightly on the improvised biobed

"Why?"

He asked me, narrowing his eyes.

"I am looking for her family. I" I switched into Bajoran, it was the only language which had the words I was looking for, the ritual speech summing up what I needed far more elegantly than Standard ever could.

"She has embarked on her journey and seeks to enter the gates of heaven. Someone should know, someone should light her path."

The man stared into the middle distance, his eyes misty in the lights coming from the equipment.

"Her family are dead, that was why she was here. Partly, at least. She has an aunt, though, in Lasuma. In South Rakantha. Her name is Ro Yamaili, she lives near Maji Square, in the Arli Quarter. If you know that city, you'll know how to find her!"

I sensed he was testing me, that he didn't fully trust me. But I knew Lasuma, I had been there several times during my old life, from DS9. I was sure I could find her. There was another imperative as well. Something was starting to change aboard the ship.

We all had our own locked rooms, we had all begun craving privacy once we were free. I would never have dreamed of entering Harry or Chakotay's rooms nor they mine, but I was starting to suspect that something was not quite right. I saw them carrying the odd piece of equipment inside their rooms, boxes of electronics, PADDS, a tricorder. Harry shrugged at me and mumbled something about electronic repair gear for the ship, but I was suspicious. I don't know, I could not isolate one thing, but something made me want to think about moving on, something in my gut was starting to stir.

I told them a few days later, after our latest trip out among the old Maquis worlds. It was a faintly nerve wracking conversation, but I, to this day, do not know why. Why was I so nervous about telling them that I was going? At the time, I put it down to the idea of going alone after so long as a team. But now I think there was more to it, even then.

We agreed to fly to Bajor, then I would travel to Lasuma City whilst they remained with the ship, continuing with our regular transport runs. It would be strange returning to Bajor after so long and after so many changes. I sat in my cabin during my downtime, reading all the newsfeeds I could find about the siltation on Bajor. It was painful, the decline in this world which once held so much promise.

With the collapse of the Wormhole, Bajor had lost its importance and Starfleet had withdrawn. The Station had been more or less abandoned as Bajor regressed into poverty, no longer strategically significant. This regression had been followed by an inevitable military coup, and now the planet existed under a tense, repressive military rule. From what I could gather, this was not cruel like the Cardassian occupation, more focussed. Certainly the military kept people alive, which was, I was led to believe, a major achievement.

I could not hide my nerves as we got close, however. Not for myself, though. I looked completely different, my hair was longer and speckled with grey. The irritation which had developed where the tracking pellet had been implanted in my skin had been replaced by a large pink scar, which our primitive equipment could not remove. Most obviously though, my eyes looked different. I looked my age now, the eagerness, the brightness was gone. And I was no longer dressed in Starfleet blue or Internal Affairs black. Instead, I wore a simple Bajoran style tunic and trousers, a cloak for warmth and discretion.

I was prepared, and as the shuttle landed, I took a deep breath and prepared to do something I had been wishing to do for so long. I could only pray that no one would recognise me.


	5. Chapter 5

The rain poured down on the streets of Lasuma. This rain was the product of the severe static discharges caused by the collapse of the Wormhole, it flooded down, soaking through cloth and hair. Lightening crashed and flashed above, in some ways a good thing as it provided the only light in the poor streets of the Arli quarter. This was a long way from the well kept, peaceful temple quarter I had visited earlier in the day to purchase the Duranja-Ala. The polymer box kept the flame dry and alive, it was probably the only part of me that was dry.

I crossed the Maji Square, skulking with my hood covering my face, looking like a fugitive in a filthy night. Ducking down an alleyway, I began looking for the mural of the Akhtan, that familiar emblem of the Bajoran people. Once I saw it, faded and peeling on the wall of a semi-derelict house, I was able to count three doors down before arriving at what I hoped was Ro Yamaili's house.

I tapped on the lopsided door, hanging precariously off rotting hinges. After a long pause, in which I became convinced that this was the wrong place, a small Bajoran woman opened the door just a few centimetres. She held a lantern up so she could see my face, and in the dim light, I saw a world-worn face, with eyes that stared fiercely at the world.

"Are you Ro Yamaili?" I asked, it was too wet and cold to beat around the bush.

"That depends on who's asking" She replied shrewdly, but I sensed that she was aware that this answer would give the truth away to me immediately.

I took a deep breath and began the ritual speech.

"_raka-ja ut shala morala... ema bo roo kana... uranak... ralanon Laren... propeh va nara ehsuk shala-kan vunek"_

Do not let her walk alone, guide her on her journey, protect the one named Laren and take her into the gates of heaven. The words resounded in my head as I spoke them and I remembered with shocking clarity the noise of the phaser, separating her molecules into vapour, splitting whatever constituted her and casting it to the winds.

Ro Yamaili looked at me for a few moments as I held the Duranja-Ala out to her. She opened the door a little wider, then stared straight into my face and asked outright.

"How did you know Laren? How do you know...?"

I thought for a moment. I could tell her we were in the Maquis together, I could tell her I heard a rumour. In the end, though, I hedged.

"We were not in the Maquis together, we met in a different place. But she was a close friend of mine and guided me through so much."

Ro Yamaili paused again, for longer this time. Her breath seemed to catch in her throat. Finally,

"You had better come in. And in answer to your first question, yes." And she moved to allow me through the door.

I noticed as she did so, she glanced outside into the night, obviously looking for any watchers. The door slammed shut behind me abruptly and I glanced around the dingy, damp entranceway.

We crossed a dark courtyard, laced with Talassa Ivy and Pantagriana. It was probably a beautiful place in the summer, but in this cold rain, it reeked of decay and desolation. The lights were all out, adding to the eerie sense.

Ro Yamaili led me into the living area, into the kitchen. She took the Duranja-Ala off me and set it on the table, in the centre.

"We will tell them later. First, we must talk"

With that, she gently removed my cloak and hung it over a clothes horse in front of the stove. It felt like something a mother would do, and the gentle touch and unconditional caring expressed by this simple gesture touched a nerve in me. For a few seconds, I wanted to cry. But, as so many times before, I pulled myself together, steeled myself against the world as she gestured for me to sit at a chair and busied herself making me a hot drink. There was a definite feeling that she needed to say something difficult, that she was working out how,

"Were you in prison with Laren?"

She finally came out with the question.

I paused, fighting with all my instincts of how to answer that question. The various lies and stories I had rehearsed in my mind sprang up, then drifted away, completely inappropriate for this situation.

"Yes. We were in the same cellblock. She died there."

"But you were not in the Maquis?"

"No, I was in Starfleet. My arrest happened well after Starfleet was concerned with the Maquis"

I hoped she would leave the issue, but she pressed it. Calmly, sympathetically, but just as firmly as Sloan.

"Were you with the Dominion?"

Hot anger flared on my cheeks

"No. No, definitely not. They thought that, but I wasn't, I didn't. I was, I am loyal. I didn't, I couldn't"

I realised that I was stammering, that words were pouring out of my mouth and I could not stop them. The idea of being seen as a Dominion spy was horrible. I was desperate to convince her, desperate for her to understand that I was not.

She reached out and held me under the chin, firmly but at the same time without causing pain. She looked into my eyes and my face for several moments, before nodding.

"They thought you were. But you were not. You are not the only one. But you were definitely not part of Laren's Maquis cell?"

"No. but why does it matter?"

"How long were you with Laren, in Starbase 53?"

I thought back, trying to count. I had never truly considered the question before, never completely willing to admit how much of my life had been taken. In my mind, I was still a doctor in my early thirties, the whole universe in front of me.

"Thirteen years. From the beginning, at least for me, right up until the end for her"

Again, Ro Yamaili regarded me with steely eyes. She seemed to be thinking.

"You were there with another from the Maquis, one who came off the ship called Voyager?"

I froze, silent and unmoving. Whatever this questioning was in aid of, I most certainly did not want to implicate Chakotay

She seemed to understand. Her questioning shifted tack.

"You are the one who experienced an Orb Shadow in Starbase 53? You are the one who saw the Emissary in your dreams?"

The shock must have registered on my face. I knew there was no point denying it.

"How do you know?"

"We had more effective ways of communicating than Internal Affairs ever realised. It would have been easier for you to tell me who you were from the beginning, but I understand why you could not. There are things you need to know, dangers which need to be resolved. But first we must mark the journey of Laren."

She walked over to an old style comms panel. Since the exit of the Federation from Bajor, much of the technology had regressed, but it was still functional. Opening a channel, she leant towards the microphone and spoke in a clear, ringing voice.

"Ro Laren. A Warrior has Fallen"

I was surprised at the Klingon statement, but Laren could not be described as anything else but a warrior. Less than five minutes later, they started to come. Bajorans of all ages, clad in simple garments of farmers, factory workers. They gathered in the courtyard, under the shelter of the bushes. I watched through a small window

"Wait here" Yamaili said to me firmly as she gathered up the Duranja-Ala and moved towards the courtyard. I heard her greeting the people in Bajoran, the the next sound was the wailing voices of the Death Chant.

As it pitched and keened, I remembered that night, as we ran for the shuttle, the fear of dying coming on so suddenly after so many years of believing that death held no fear when life was so meaningless. I remembered running, running for freedom. How much Laren had wanted to be free, how she ached for freedom in a way that maybe I never did. But then she had a life outside, whereas any life I now tried to lead could only be a hollow shell of what had been. The noise her body had made as it de-constructed into its constituent parts and spread as vapour through the air. I had breathed in that air, I probably carried a part of her around within myself, both in my mind and quite literally my heart. I hoped she would bring me luck now.

Eventually I drifted into sleep in that small, Bajoran kitchen. I felt safer than I had for a long time, even through I knew so little about Yamaili. Something about her, about this house was so refreshing.


	6. Chapter 6

Yamaili gently shook me awake the next morning. She looked exhausted, but she took my hand and eased me up out of my chair. Fingers across her lips in that universal gesture for silence, she led me across the courtyard, cold in the morning mist. Taking me up to a window, she pointed into what seemed to be a living room. There in the centre was the Duranja, flame proudly shining forth. In Bajoran she whispered,

"_raka-ja ut shala morala, ema bo roo kana, uranak ralanon Laren, propeh va nara ehsuk shala-kan vunek" _

"She will be taken into the gates of Heaven" I responded, whispering.

"Now, we must talk about things. About the future. But not here. I cannot endanger my children here. Meet me on the north side of the city, on the Lantaway, opposite a shop called Enkathnar." She reached down and sketched the Bajoran symbols in the dust. My genetically enhanced memory did not fail me, even now, and I had already memorised them before she kicked the dirt aside.

I left, hastily and took a roundabout route.

Rakantha had always been one of the poorer parts of Bajor, but I was amazed and horrified to see how much it had changed. There were checkpoints at every major road junction, manned by young, cold Bajorans, looking like they should have been in school, not on the street with old fashioned phaser rifles. I dodged around the barriers, keeping out of sight.

The shop, when I finally reached it, turned out to be a shack selling a bizarre combination of tacky holoimages depicting various holy symbols, cheap candy and pornography. One of those shops that appear in poor areas, like so many of the little shops on the Promenade when Starfleet first came to DS9.

A man walked up to me, clad in worn and dusty Vedek's orange.

"Come with me"

I followed, unsure as to what else to do. Behind me were the checkpoints, if they were to see me, an offworlder walking around in the dawn light, they would certainly get suspicious, and then my identity would be known. I had no other choice than to follow the Vedek as he walked out of the city, towards the dusty hills in the middle distance.

Once among the hills, he settled somewhat, and his demeanour changed from anxiously scanning the sky, to looking intently at the ground, clearly searching for a particular marking.

He dived suddenly into a hole, and I would have completely missed him had I not had my full attention focussed on his back.

It was an old Resistance hideout, lit with dim solar bulbs. I could barely make out Yamaili's face, sitting at the back on a pile of cushions and blankets, but it was definitely her voice which called out

"Thank you Vedek Molan. May your mediation be peaceful and enlightening this morning."

The Vedek turned to leave and both Yamaili and I watched him go.

"I am sorry, Julian, that this was necessary."

I tensed. How did she know my name? I had not given it.

"You're surprised I know your name. Don't be. This is Bajor after all, everyone up there" She nodded in the general direction of the sky, and I understood straight away that she was referring to DS9.

"They all knew you. We all wondered if you would go to the same place that they had taken those select members of the Maquis."

I must have looked confused again. I did not understand.

"Surely you must have wondered why Maquis were being imprisoned in one of the most high-security facilities? How Laren ended up in 53, whilst others were being sent to Rehabilitation Camps and being sentenced through the usual justice system. Why she was dealt with by Internal Affairs."

"I thought it was because she was ex-Starfleet." I replied, honestly.

"Oh yes, in part it was. But it was a specific part of her Starfleet training that was the issue here. You see, the Maquis were building a super-weapon. A particular type of super-weapon. Laren had some of the necessary technical knowledge, she was working with others to complete the weapon. Starfleet were, are still, very interested in it, hence their particular interest in Ro Laren."

"What kind of weapon?" I asked, a part of me not wishing to know.

"A Chronometric Bomb. Capable of pushing a ship out of phase with time, so it would be frozen, defenceless and completely open to destruction from a chronometrically guided signal."

My entire body froze. I managed to stutter

"What happened to this weapon, after..after..."

She understood that I was referring to the Dominion, even though I could not say the words.

"It was broken up and scattered across the old Maquis worlds. The cost of it being found outweighed the benefits of keeping it together, but we could not destroy it."

My mouth went dry, I could barely move, barely think. A weapon which could be modified to allow someone to travel through time, or at least a signal through time. A signal to a starship, a signal to a Borg.

"I have to go" I stumbled upright and blundered towards the cave exit.

"Wait" Yamaili called, and I froze again. "I have something that will help you."

She reached into a pocket and removed an earring.

"Here" She reached towards me and pushed it into my hand, folding my fingers around the metal.

"You are now a member of the Ro family, and a family which extends beyond blood. We will help you in whatever limited way we can. Now go, you must decide what to do with what I have told you, I am past the point which I can act."

I crashed out of the cave and began moving towards the city. I have no memory of how I made it onto a shuttle or arriving at the rendezvous point. A mist covered my eyes and my thoughts and did not clear until I was back aboard the freighter, walking towards the Bridge, where Chakotay and Kim sat on watch.

I eased the hatch shut, and in that movement, my anger seemed to fade. I did not know what to say. I gazed at the pair, Chakotay in the commander's chair, Harry at the Conn.

"I know what you mean now."

I said, simply. One memory was standing out above all others.

They swung to look at me.

"What do you mean?"

"We want to try again. We want" my voice choked slightly. "We want to try and reach them again. I thought it was a myth, a wild scheme of yours. I did not think you would really try. But you are, aren't you? The Maquis worlds? You've been gathering the components of the Maquis chronoton bomb. You're going to build a new device?"

Harry looked furious, like I was getting in the way of some heartfelt dream, like he wanted to kill me. I suppose I was standing in his way, really.

"Yes," Chakotay said simply. "We are going to try again. We have had a lot of time to think about what we need to say to Voyager, and now we are sure we can get it right."

"But, but what about the timeline? What about the changes?"

Kim rose from the Conn, his face a terrifying, angry red.

"Why should you care? What has this time done for you? Look at you! A fugitive, a criminal, a spy."

I burst in, angrier myself now

"I never have been a spy. I'm not a criminal."

"But two quadrants think you are. This life has hardly turned out fantastic for you, for any of us. Has it?"

I paused, it was seductive. What if Voyager made the difference in the war somehow? What if this was meant to succeed?

"I can't let you risk so much history. So many lives. You want to save, what? A hundred and twenty people? And to do so, you're willing to sacrifice millions."

"What if we let you send a signal too? What if we sent our signal and a signal to the Bashir of fifteen, twenty years ago, warning him? What if we could save Voyager and give you your life back?"

I imagined it. My younger self being sent a signal. Sitting in a cargo bay on DS9, or in the Infirmary. The chance to be spared the waste that was my life, the chance to carry on doing something meaningful instead of languishing in 53, watching my life drifting away. I could have been there when Jadzia was attacked, I could have saved her, saved Dax and the baby. Maybe even saved Sisko and kept the Wormhole open long enough to save more of those unfortunates trapped in the Gamma Quadrant prison camps.

No, it was too risky. We were surviving in this timeline, at least. What if preventing the loss of Voyager triggered a collapse, caused us to lose more ground, caused us to lose the war. Things were not good in this time, but they were far, far better than they could have been.

I left the ship later that night, taking all I could carry. I would not stay, I was not sure what would happen. Harry and Chakotay were desperate, strong in the belief of the justness of their cause. I could not risk being there.

I was able to grab a PADD which contained some of the timescale calculations. I gathered that this event would happen in the Badlands, the plasma storm was necessary to power the beam. They would attempt to change a variable saved in the Voyager computer, cause a function to initiate slightly later than required, causing a slight deviation which would, if all was planned, cause Voyager to correct its Slipstream course, staying in the tunnel rather than having it collapse around them.

The only question now was what to do with this information. And as I flew away in the small, one man escape craft, I pondered this problem.

As I did so, I realised I only had two options. One, I could leave them to try and see what happened, be nothing more than an innocent bystander when the timeline changed. Or the second, I could go to Starfleet, tell them what was about to happen, provide them with the information and hope that they would stop it. No other organisation had the knowledge and equipment which might be needed.

I thought long into the night, and it became clear what was required. I would have to step into the belly of the beast, and go directly to Starfleet. The only question which remained was how to get there.


	7. Chapter 7

There were two avenues of help available, from what I could see. One was Ro Yamaili's "family," the other was Dax, the mysterious PADD which accompanied the transport from the Defiant once it had been disabled after our first escape from 53. There was only one problem, I had no idea who Dax was. Clearly it was not the Trill Symbiont known as Dax, it was dead, I had confirmed that after the escape, just to put my own mind at rest.

A thought hit me like a bolt of summer lightening. I was transported in my mind back to the first day this nightmare began, back to the Promenade on DS9. The vision was so clear I could feel the restraints pricking and pinching my wrists, the fire behind my face as I walked through the line of staring, curious faces. Sisko's words blurred in my mind, as they had at the time and in every memory of this moment since.

"We'll get you out of this, Julian." A voice cut through the blurring haze of sound. A clarion call in my mind.

Kira Nerys. The first place to start.

A couple of slips of Latinum bought the Bajoran dockhand's silence and I was able to find a public access comm panel in a seedier part of the Rakantha Port district, the kind of place where noone would pay attention to a man hiding his face.

The Major was still listed, however her address was unsurprisingly classified. I was slightly shocked to see that she was still listed as a part of the military, after all, she had fought so strongly for the democracy which had been overthrown by the Bajoran Militia after the collapse of the Wormhole and the departure of Starfleet.

In hindsight, I think it was a blessing that her address was not listed. I was not thinking properly, I would have probably just contacted her straight out and triggered my own destruction. Instead, with her details missing, I had to think more laterally, a circumstance which saved me.

Major Kira had always been a deeply religious and spiritual person, and probably maintained ties with the monasteries. Following this logic, my next database enquiry was for a Vedek Molan. His was an unusual name, and it took several searches and spellings before I located him in a Rakanthan Monastery.

One quick and surreptitious comm call later and a meeting had been arranged. Crouching in the dust of the foothills, I waiting for Molan to appear on his way to his meditation point. He knelt by the side of the road and mumbled the Olanjata, the prayer for safe travels. As arranged, on the third verse, he mumbled one word – the word for "guidance." This was our signal. I walked out to the direction post, and whispered, in Standard.

"Walk by our side to help us."

It was a line from a very old prayer, taught to me by a Human nurse who waved me off from the centre on Adigeon Prime. After a few minutes, I turned off the road as directed by Molan and found him sitting in the entrance to a small cave.

"Thank you for coming" I began "Thank you for meeting me."

"Yamaili thought you might need something. She expected something to happen. She asked me to help you, so here I am."

"Thank you."

The offer of help, unconditionally given, was a breath of fresh air in a universe where it seemed that everyone wanted something, and that, as a desperate person, I had to give all the time to stay away from my pursuers.

"I need to contact Kira Nerys, of the Bajoran Militia. It is very important, important that I speak to her and don't get caught by the authorities in the attempt. I don't know how much Yamaili knows about me, how much she told you, but I have some" I paused "History with Starfleet."

Vedek Molan nodded calmly.

"I know. Probably more than you realise, but that is not the issue right now. I also know of Kira Nerys, Colonel Kira. She is one of the old guard in the Militia, she regularly seeks out spiritual guidance. Like so many of them, they wish someone to tell them that the path they have set Bajor on is right. Not that we can, of course."

He fell silent again, gazing down at the sand for a long time before continuing.

"The reason I have agreed to help you, the reason Ro Yamaili has helped you is partly due to your reputation from Deep Space 9. The people who knew you there, they trusted you. Many of our people remember you. If you ask to see Kira Nerys, I can only trust that it is for an honourable reason, a reason I do not wish to know. Where are you staying?"

I smiled wryly

"In an overpriced room above the Risa Time Brothel in the Port District"

"In three days, begin looking for a red triangle, placed above the sign for 'Tacha's Coffeehouse' on Talinta Street. When you see it, head to the monastery on the top of the hill and enter by the Eastern Door. Tell the gate guard that you are a traveller seeking spiritual guidance. Tell him those words exactly. If you are followed, or feel that something is wrong, tell him that you are a traveller from Farlana Prime, if you feel that everything is normal, tell him that you are a traveller from Pergama. He will bring you to me and I will do the rest. Do you understand?"

I nodded.

"Then I shall see you then. Prophets go with you in all your endeavours"

I stood and left him, taking a roundabout route through the sandy hills, now beginning to warm in the growing heat of the day.

Three days passed and nothing. The rain, which began in earnest the evening after I had met Molan, continued to pour.

Five days, nothing.

Six days and I was beginning to doubt the word of my genial Vedek friend.

On the seventh day, the triangle appeared. The sun was shining and the air tingled with the early morning promise of a fine day.

I took a roundabout route to the monastery, avoiding checkpoints and keeping a close eye for followers. I made it to the East gate without incident, and shuffled up to the gate guard.

"I am a traveller from Pergama, seeking spiritual guidance."

The guard looked me up and down, then stumped off silently. I paused, unsure, until he turned and grunted

"Come on. Another of Molan's waifs and strays!"

I assumed the second remark was for his benefit more than mine, but followed him anyway, through the peaceful monastery grounds into the inner quarters.

Molan was in his room, waiting.

"Ahh, traveller! Come in. Thank you Baylan, you may go. Your usual will be waiting under the Bolian Rhododendrons this evening."

The guard left

"Useful man, incredibly useful but has a taste for Andorian ale which needs regular satisfaction. Luckily, so do many of the leaders of our great planet"

He laughed, then turned deadly serious again as he was reminded of the nature of our business.

"Kira has agreed to see me. You will come too, dressed as a Vedekashana. When we are there, I will leave the two of you. If you need me, you come back to the monastery and tell Baylan that you wish to donate a fountain to the sanctum."

And so, I found myself swathed in orange cloth, face hidden as appropriate for a Vedekashana. This extreme ascetic movement had not been popular when I had last been on Bajor, and I had only ever seen one person fully covered before. But now, the physical barrier from society was appealing, not just to those operating on the murky edges of the law, but to those who genuinely wanted to express a protest at the direction their government had taken.

I peered out of the orange mesh face covering as I sat next to Molan on his cart, pulled by a Bajoran horse-like creature. Since the end of the war, most parts of Bajor had been reduced to a more simple life, fuel and food shortages had crippled the economy.

At the entrance to the Militia base, a guard pulled lightly on the animal's rein and Molan halted the beast.

"Vedek! Delivering your usual load?"

"Of course, Darila, of course. I have a meeting with Colonel Kira as well, I'm sure I can leave the cart here? You'll look after it, of course?"

The guard's smirk told me that this was part of some arrangement, but I did not question it further has Molan gestured for me to dismount.

The robes were hot, heavy and uncomfortable, and I was deeply relieved to enter the atmospherically controlled office of Colonel Kira. I could see a figure sat at a desk, but could not see her features at all.

"Colonel. May the Prophets walk alongside you in all your endeavours."

"And to you, Vedek. Now, what can I do for you?"

"Actually, it is for my colleague that I am here. He seeks an audience with yourself." Molan had told me that it was not unusual for new monks to try to see Kira, nearest to the Emissary.

She sighed, tiredly.

"I have much to do, Molan."

"You should see him, you need to see him." 

"Very well, Molan. But if this is another of your games..." The threat was left unspoken, but it reminded me so much of the old Kira Nerys.

Molan nodded and left.

"It'd better be good, Vedek'a." She looked at me, directly at where my eyes would be if she could see them and her gaze contained the same power which had allowed her to command men on suicide missions.

For a moment I was rendered speechless, then I spoke.

"It isn't. Not for either of us" I pulled the veil away and revealed my face.

It was a horrible, sickening, tense moment. I had never, in thirteen years, seen the recordings of her questioning sessions. I had never established beyond doubt whether she thought me innocent or guilty. The only reason I was here asking for her help, was that one sentence, all those years ago

"We'll get you out of this, Julian."

She was silent for a long time. I used this opportunity to look at her, see how she had changed.

Kira Nerys was older, and somehow, more world-worn. Her hair, which had always been smart and short, was now longer and slightly unkempt. Her face bore the hallmarks of continued exhaustion. Here was a person who was throwing their life at a cause. Around her was the debris of that, PADD's, paper, maps, scattered across her desk, pinned to the walls. She was thinner, sadder. Her eyes radiated some deep melancholy which had never been there before.

"What are you doing here?" Her voice was quiet, and surprised. She had not hit her comm badge or shouted for help though, which had to be a positive sign.

"You were being held by Starfleet, by that man. Why did you come here?" Her voice changed, was sharper, more direct. I noticed her lack of surprise that I was free, that intrigued me.

"I need your help." Simple, but honest.

"I escaped with two Starfleet officers, from the Starship Voyager. They were arrested for attempting to change the timeline. They are going to do it again. I have to warn Starfleet, I have to warn Captain Geordi La Forge, captain of USS Challenger. He stopped them the first time, he's the only one who can stop them this time. I can't get to Earth on my own."

She looked at me like I was crazy.

"Can you prove it?"

I dug the PADD out of my robes and held it out to her. She spent a long time reading it, I recognised her thoroughness, it was what had made her so successful on DS9, it was what had kept her alive as a resistance fighter. That and her temper, of course.

"What makes you think I would help you?"

Now was make or break. If she understood, then she would help me, if not, then I could only hope she would allow me to leave the office still free.

"Dax."

A long pause. I held my breath.

"How did you find out?" Kira said softly.

"I guessed. I hoped." I replied, matching the tone of her voice.

"I promised that I would help you, a promise I always intended to try and keep. A promise I kept through the questioning sessions, but we all thought you could never escape. Then Quark contacted me to tell me that he had discovered a transmission from Internal Affairs relating to your recapture. He also acquired the information about the tracking pellet, he still has many sources, though it was a great risk for him. I slipped it all to a Bajoran Starfleet ensign, who had been in the Militia stationed on DS9 whilst you were there then left to join Starfleet. You saved his daughter's life, he wanted to repay the favour. He arranged to get the information to you, we never knew if he was successful. I suppose now that question has been answered."

"Thank you." The words were totally inadequate for the depth of emotion, but they were all I had.

"I can try to get you part of the way to Earth. I will need to make a call, I will come back." 

She disappeared into a side annexe in her office, and I could hear her voice but not make out any words.

I felt more and more nervous sitting in her office, listening to her voice. I reread the PADD for myself, I had to, had to remind myself of why I was here and not safely on some frontier planet, out of sight, out of reach.

"This is about more that just you, Julian." I whispered to myself, very quietly.

Eventually, Kira returned.

"Tomorrow, you need to find the ship Teekma, the Ferengi ship at Rakantha Port. You will become a dockhand, they will take you to New Tokyo, I will give you a PADD with some contacts, people who will try to get you to Earth. Once on Earth, you're on your own. The information on that PADD could destroy us all, you had better not be lying to me about your motives."

Her voice was sharp and sincere. I knew that if I was lying, if I really had betrayed her, she would hunt me down and kill me. I had nothing to fear, my story was genuine. How much I wished it was not.

"Thank you, thank you so much." I replied.

She shrugged.

"I had to do something for you, I suppose." Her voice was tired, strained. So different to who she was, we had all changed. Somehow I wanted to mark that moment of realisation, so I asked the question. The question I had been trying to answer for myself for fifteen years.

"Major, um Colonel. What happened here? To everything we were trying to create?"

I couldn't help myself, I was curious. I had invested so much of myself into the dream that was Bajor. Almost everything I had until Sloan took it away had been pushed into this planet, the station. And now, now there was rain, poverty, hopelessness and a military government. No Federation, just a kind of grey despair. And Kira, who had risked her life so often for freedom was sitting behind a desk, part of the military apparatus of repression.

Kira gazed at me, eyes unseeing.

"I don't know. I just don't know." She replied, after a while. "The war just overtook us all. It took our ships, our safety. After the collapse of the wormhole, our atmosphere was damaged. Starfleet withdrew to lick its wounds, all those little skirmishes even after the main force had been destroyed, just sapped everyone's energy. Bajor fell into chaos, fighting on the streets, famine. We couldn't just lose what we had made after the Cardassian withdrawal. We couldn't have fought so hard only to be torn apart by civil war. Sometimes there are more important things than freedom, so here we are. Here I am."

She shook her head, sadly

"It shouldn't have ever been this way." I muttered.

Everyone had lost so much. It was easy to think that I was the only one, but so many had died, so many planets shattered, dreams ripped away. Maybe I had it lucky, sheltered from the worst. Was 53 better than a Dominion camp? Yes, of course. And I was here, when so many had been lost behind the wormhole, never to be freed. If I was still in 53, at least it would be possible to know where I was. At least I still had a chance.

I bit my lip and stared into the middle distance, I noticed that the Colonel, I could never get used to calling her that, was doing the same. My eyes stung, and hers were shining. I put out my hand, touched hers gently. She grabbed my outstretched hand, squeezed it tight. Together we cried, silently, hand in hand, for all that was lost, all that we had fought for, all that we had dreamed of.

"Would it be better to let them? To leave them to change history, to see if they can make it better?" I spoke eventually, the doubts in my mind charging for the surface.

"I think only you can decide that, Julian." Kira replied.

Mentally, I took stock. In this life, there was still a Federation, albeit smaller and less open than it had been before. Bajor was recovering, slowly, but it was getting there. Cardassia was also recovering, relations with the Klingons and Romulans were serviceable. We could recover. Maybe not us as people, Nerys and myself, but then every generation has its sacrificial lambs.

"I had better go, prepare for tomorrow."

Kira nodded.

"Good luck with whatever you decide. Maybe we will see each other again sometime."

I replaced my veil and shuffled out. It was a long walk back to the place Molan had hidden my clothes, but I made it, changed quickly then returned to my room. I would have to prepare for tomorrow, and, as the sun began to set, I knew I did not have much time.


	8. Chapter 8

I had one more task to accomplish before I could join the Ferengi ship and finally commit myself to the deep. Rummaging in my pack, I brought out my laser scalpel and dermal regenerator. I began to cut open the PADD stolen from Kim and Chakotay, using every control exercise I knew to keep my body from trembling. With a sigh of relief, I successfully extracted the isolinear chip from inside the PADD. In my hand, I held the data, without which I would be powerless.

The secondary phase of the operation was much more painful. A shot of adrenaline, endorphins and local anaesthetic helped me a lot, but the dosages were too low. It was the last of my medicines, but it had to do. I sliced an opening in my leg with the scalpel and inserted the covered chip into the gap. I could not take the risk that any PADD would be confiscated and I would be without anything. The dermal regenerator was malfunctioning as well, it was ex-Cardassian army issue equipment and not completely reliable. Still, it healed the deep cut and stopped the bleeding, just left me with a rather large, itchy red scar. Another mark of the last few years, and a lot less of a problem than the neurological damage brought on by the phasers.

The Ferengi ship was waiting just where Kira had told me, and the cargo-master was expecting me. We were quite a collection, the cargo-hands, a mix of species from across the Federation and beyond, many clearly escaping from something. I tucked my laser scalpel and Kira's PADD into my waistband before putting my pack in the sleeping area of the cargo bay. A Ferengi ship was not a place to take risks. Our first job, loading a full cargo of Salam Grass, allowed me to see who were the strongest of the group and who I should be wary of.

The journey was long and exhausting, but really just what I needed to maintain my sanity. It took two weeks to get to New Tokyo, two weeks of loading, unloading, lifting and shifting with inadequate rations and very little time for sleep. The physical exhaustion, however, finally allowed me to sleep when I had the chance, and I would just curl up into my blanket as soon as the end of shift arrived. The other cargo-hands were quiet and did not bother me, I did my fair share, though it clearly surprised them, seeing me willing to do as much as I could. I couldn't help but smile at our dishevelled band one night though, all escaping our own demons, wrapped up in blankets drinking coffee in a smelly cargo bay. I had never imagined this when I signed on to Starfleet!

New Tokyo had changed considerably from the last time I saw it. A memorial to the Starfleet dead from the colony was positioned in the main square, where there had previously been a fountain. New housing had been built to accommodate those from the other colonies who had left and come closer to Earth after the Dominion had taken Cardassia. After the fall of Betazed, many smaller colonies had ceased to exist, frightened people moved closer to the centre. Though it was a sad sight, it was helpful to myself, more people able to help me who had moved closer to Earth. Kira's PADD held the contact details of a Starfleet lieutenant from DS9 whose mother I had saved after she had experienced heart problems whilst on DS9 to visit him.

A quiet communication later and a young man came to meet me outside the large market area. He was wearing informal clothes and looking around him nervously. I could imagine him, at home with a wife and a young child, never expecting that this ghost from his past would swing back into his life, calling him on an offer he made three years ago.

"I can't do much for you, they would destroy me if they found out." he began.

"I know. Believe me, I know" I replied "But I need to get to Earth, all our futures depend on it."

He was quiet for a long time, he was clearly thinking about his family, about the risks. And about a promise, about debts and honour. The Klingons do it better, but we humans still have a sense of honour in there somewhere. Well, some of us do.

"I can get you on a shuttle bound for the Alpha Centauri colony. My friend is a civilian pilot, does transport runs. He'll take you. I suppose I owe you for what you did for my mother. She's still alive, by the way, though she takes it easy now. The replacement heart valve completely changed her life. That's why I'm here, that's why I'm doing this."

The ship was small but much more comfortable than the Ferengi freighter. Lieutenant May's friend was transporting his usual load of hydroponic equipment. New Tokyo had become a specialist supplier of this technology across the Earth sectors during the war, where it became necessary to divert energy to defence operations above food production.

But he was jumpy the whole time, and it was deeply unsettling. Every Federation shipping patrol that came near sent him into paroxysms of muttering, about the risks, about the danger. I sensed a great relief in him when he finally beamed me across to a waiting freighter orbiting Centauri. This was part of the arrangement, though the process of being beamed out by a jury-rigger cargo transporter was terrifying.

This ship was different, piloted by another ex-Starfleet pilot, Ensign Quintana. He had volunteered to help me. I had healed his broken legs after Gowron's forces had attacked DS9. I remembered him vaguely, both legs had been smashed and I had not expected him to heal so well. When he had finally walked out of the Infirmary, I had been amazed and pleased, one of the small successes of the war. He had left Starfleet not long after, when he could no longer stand up to the demands of battle. And now, here he was, piloting a civilian shuttle. Of course, I was paying for the trip, but he knew some of my past and was still willing to transport me to Earth. I was moved, I was amazed that so many people had remembered me for just doing my job. I was also surprised how many people had been touched by Internal Affairs, Quintana had been questioned a few months after leaving Starfleet, he knew someone who had been detained for two weeks after a Changeling Test malfunctioned.

"Here, eat these." He passed me a few sandwiches and a flask of tea.

"We'll be scanned coming into Earth, so you're going to need to get into a hydroponic storage unit, they'll dismiss your scan as regular biomass and not be suspicious of the quantum transporter."

I climbed into the unit, trying not to show my fear. I never quite got over the fear of small spaces brought on by the Solitary cell in 371, and, though I could always move around, the days spent on 53 under riot guard had not helped my claustrophobia. Still, I quietened myself, needs must!

Six hours in the small box and I was about ready to go insane. My legs hurt, my head hurt. Everything hurt. And I was returning to almost certain recapture, the only consolation being that I may be able to get my message across first. It really would be forever, this time. No hearings, no opportunities to make my case, just a small cell on a starbase somewhere, out of sight, rotting away.

For yet another time, I considered running. Aborting this mission, fleeing back to Bajor or the old Maquis worlds, waiting out the temporal storm, seeing what changed. Maybe not even noticing what changed.

"Doctor. I'm preparing to beam you down. You'll go to Berlin, it's the traditional entry point for all the wanderers! They're less likely to find you there. After that, you're on your own."

The voice echoed around the hydroponics pod.

Last chance. Last chance to stop it all. Last chance to go back.

"Beam me down" I said, confident. Time to go with a bit of style.

I arrived at T-Bahnhof Zoo, the old Berlin station. German, the language, had died out long ago, but it was funny how the original place names remained, even though the zoo was long gone.


	9. Chapter 9

_Author's note: I am aware that the monument I will describe in this chapter is currently known as the "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe" (__Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas_) _however, as religion does not appear to be a major feature of Human society in the 24__th__ Century as conceived by Star Trek, I believe that it would have been re-designated as a more general monument against tyranny. This may be controversial, but it's my little imagined bit of the Universe, so I'm sticking to it! ;)_

I walked through the streets of Berlin, breathing in the autumn air which carried with it a faint tang of cold. It always amazed me how much of Europe had survived the Nuclear Terror of the third World War, but then, the use of the Neutron Bomb had made sure that infrastructure had survived whilst people fell in their millions, billions. It was the same in London, my home. The old buildings had weathered the storm majestically whilst around them, people had burnt and died in the streets, screaming as they had been vaporised or later, after the initial strike, the lost people wandered blindly through their beautiful streets as their skin fell down their legs and they bled from every orifice.

I shuddered at the thought. The Federation was supposed to prevent any future such wars, but people had died in such similar ways on the bridges and engineering spaces of starships, in prison camps and planets.

It had been an amazing period in earth history. First World War One and Two, then the Eugenics wars which had destroyed much of my ancestors' North Africa, then World War Three had destroyed everything. I shook my head to clear the thought of the Eugenics Wars,

"Too close to home, Bashir, too close to home" I muttered to myself.

The famous monument to World War III was in the centre of Alexanderplatz. The data we had remaining from the dark times on the 20th Century had shown a large tower on Alexanderplatz, stretching up towards the sky. It had been destroyed by one of the detonations, crashing down upon Berlin like a wrecking ball. In its place was now the Monument to the Nuclear Dead, that hand reaching up out of the rubble, frozen forever in the futile gesture, a child's hand, an innocent hand begging for help which never came. Not until the Vulcans, anyway.

I stared at that hand for a long time, something about the futility of it made me want to weep. Eventually I had to leave, before my emotional state became cause for suspicion. I walked down the old boulevard, still named Unter Dem Linten, though nobody outside of the linguistics institutes knew what it meant. It was a very long way to the Brandenburg Gate, from where I could pick up a local transport to make the next part of my hop towards San Francisco.

Somehow, when I arrived at the ruins of the gate, my feet were drawn in another direction. When I looked up and realised, I had ended up at the Monument to Tyranny, one place I had not wanted to be. But here I was, none the less.

Initially, it made no sense, those blocks, blocks of nothingness, square, concrete slabs. I walked among them, then, with a stab of claustrophobia, realised I was surrounded. They were taller than I was, and the smooth surface gave no purchase to lift oneself up against them. I moved more quickly, trying to escape, faster and faster as the blocks surrounded me, trapping out all light, nothing but their sterile concrete facing. As I arrived back into the light, where the blocks were small and could be easily conquered by a foot, I realised the significance of the memorial. Most of the other tourists were floating around the small blocks, instinctively staying away from the larger, darker areas. They were like the normal people, not seeing the incursions of tyranny because it did not trouble them. I had been one of them, once, a long time ago. Only if you were careless or committed would you find yourself amongst the large blocks. It was a choice you had to make, either consciously or unconsciously. In a way, I had made a choice. Maybe my choice was made after I pulled on that black uniform, I could have resisted more strongly. I did not, I turned towards the darkness.

I had not thought this monument would mean anything to me. I did not think I had been the victim of tyranny. Poor luck, maybe. After such a golden life, it was maybe inevitable that Fate would wish to slap me down? But now I could reflect, I knew it was tyranny. Taking someone from their life, locking them in a holding cell, parading them, kidnapping them in the middle of the night, imprisoning them without trial or sentence. Starfleet condoned tyranny. The Starfleet I had lied for, fought for, nearly died for. I thought back to the Internment Camp, to the Dominion. They had been tyrannical too. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Again, I wanted to walk away. To see if Chakotay and Harry could make things better, to take that risk. But then I saw a small child, a little girl of about four or five playing among the blocks. My first thoughts were of her. Chakotay had told me that there had been a Borg on Voyager, that they had incorporated Borg technology into the ship. I thought of the risks of letting them succeed, having Borg on Earth when we were so unable to fight them. I imagined that little girl in a maturation chamber, cruelly maimed and implanted, a drone. My resolve was once again hardened. It was then I noticed her parents. They were looking at the memorial and the look was in their eyes, the look of people who had faced something. They were human, the male had a large scar across his face, the woman looked at her child and there was something in her gaze that made me look again, a fierce, possessive hunger. It was as though she was terrified that her child would be taken from her. The man must have seen me looking at him, as he came over to me. I shied back out of instinct, but he demanded my focus.

"You've had a good look, have you?" He half-shouted, bitterly. His wife moved over to him and touched him on the shoulder

"Shush, Daniel, please!" She whispered.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't staring at you. You reminded me of something, of someone. From a long time ago." I spoke quickly, anxious to avoid a scene.

The man, Daniel, looked into my face for a long time, anger melting away into something else. I thought I saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes, and a shadow of panic flashed through me.

"Marissa. Please make sure Taliya is all right. I think she'd like an ice cream."

The words were ones that any caring father might have spoken, but his entire focus was directed on me. Marissa seemed to have experienced this before, as she gathered up the child without a word and walked away.

"You were there too?" He said to me. "I can see it"

"Where?" I said, the fear turning my stomach to jelly. I could not have travelled so close to be defeated now.

"One of the Internment Camps, in the Gamma Quadrant maybe. With Them, anyway?"

Was it so obvious?

"Yes, I was."

A simple answer.

"I thought so, it's something in the eyes, I think. How long? I was two and a half years, in 693. We broke our way out as the Dominion retreated, we were some of the last few who came back before. Before the, the"

He did not manage to finish, but I knew exactly what he was referring to. The collapse of the Wormhole which left so many trapped forever.

"I guess we were both lucky then. I made it out after a few months, I was one of the earlier ones, They didn't know much about Starfleet people then! What we could do."

I was conscious of not letting on too much, I didn't want him to guess who I was. I had achieved a certain notoriety amongst the ex-prisoners of war. If he realised who I was, he could have me taken back.

But it was no good.

"You're still running."

It was not a question, it was a statement.

"So many of us were questioned by Starfleet afterwards, so many of us left or had to leave. Were you one of those?"

A way out!

"Yes, I was." I replied, grateful. "They thought I could no longer function, that I had residual psychiatric problems. I left Starfleet the same year I escaped. I was supposed to be monitored by the psychiatric team, but I left them as well." 

Daniel nodded. "They treat you like a criminal even though we never asked to be captured."

That was very close to home. So, so true. Truer than he would ever realise. It also triggered a brainwave in me. Lying was already so easy, I could just extend my story slightly.

"I want to get to Starfleet Headquarters to tell them. To complain. I gave my life to Starfleet, and this is what happens. I'm trying to do it without them noticing. I'm sure if I get detected on Earth they'll want me to go back to hospital for evaluation like last time."

Daniel nodded. He thought for a long minute then replied.

"I have a ship on one of the orbital stations. New Liverpool Freeport, to be accurate. I could beam you to San Francisco from it without you being detected. Once you're there, you can visit the new Starfleet HQ. It's a bit different from how it was before the Breen, but you can still get into the public areas. Maybe from there you can make your protest. You won't have long, but it might work."

Again, the lies, the exploitation had brought me something I wanted. I had always been called charismatic, something they did during the Enhancements, but this new exploitation disturbed me.

No, i thought. I could not allow myself to be distracted. I was on a mission to save the Earth, nothing could distract me. It was a bit like those old Holosuite programmes I had enjoyed. That thought brought a wry smile to my face.

"Thank you," I replied.

"We'll do it now, before Marissa and Tali come back. I don't want them to know."

He turned away and entered some commands into a wristpad computer. I felt the transporter beam start to tingle around me. In the last moment before I dematerialised, I mouthed "thank you" again.

Maybe you think it was crazy. To trust a man you have never met before. But this was different, I could see the look in his eyes. Martok had the same look about him, so did Garak. I just had to trust, without some trust, this would have been impossible. My burden would have been too heavy a weight to bear.


	10. Chapter 10

San Franciso was just as beautiful as I remembered it. I re materialised in a public park near the centre. The air was fresh and clean, it smelt familiar, the smell of the city triggering so many memories. I could close my eyes and feel twenty again. It had been early evening in Berlin, which made it 8am here. A whole day to plan my approach.

I walked for a long time around the city. I sat at a table outside a small café and enjoyed an old-fashioned cappuccino and croissant, read a newsfeed, soaked up the sunshine. I watched the pigeons peck morsels of food out of the cracks in the pavement. I threw a few crumbs of croissant at them, feeling the simple satisfaction of connection with such an alien species. No, pigeons do not live in fluid space, communicate telepathically, shapeshift. But they are alien, with their wings, with our inability to communicate, to share each other's lives.

When they rose as one into the sky, wings flapping, spreading dust around them in their never-ending pursuit of food, I realised it was time. I had to face the inevitable, and with it, my last hour of freedom. The night I was first taken off DS9, it had felt like walking through mud, I could barely move. It was the same now as I walked towards Starfleet Headquarters. My plan was simple, join a tour of the rebuilt HQ, fake illness to be taken through the shielding into a room where I could use my small personal transporter to beam to the Officer's Mess, where I would hopefully find Captain La Forge. A weak plan, but better than nothing. I offered a small prayer of thanks to the prophet who guided Chakotay into insisting that we bought personal transporters in case of trouble on the Maquis worlds.

It was easy enough to join the tour group. Starfleet were anxious to show off their headquarters, to promote the organisation now the Galaxy had been changed so radically. It looked almost the same as it had always done, which made the changes so much more shocking, the shielding, the atmospheric phaser banks. But the tour was almost interesting, I learnt a lot about the organisation from which I had been cast out. If I had not had to concentrate so hard on keeping my neurological twitching under control, I would have enjoyed it.

I saw my opportunity on the penultimate stop of the tour, the war memorials. First, Wolf 359. I had seen it before, but it never lost its chilling power and desolation. Thirty-nine names, laser etched into a piece of debris. Eleven thousand people who never came home. I heard the collective gasp come from the throats of the group, I realised my lungs had made a noise too. It was impossible not to. Humanity had come so close to destruction.

The second memorial was far, far worse. If 39 ships had resulted in 11,000 deaths, one battle of the Dominion War had cost ninety eight vessels. Twenty eight thousand people, in one battle. How many people in the war? We did not know. Tyra, Betazed, Starfleet itself, all those trapped behind the Wormhole after it collapsed. How do you remember so many? How do you honour so many dead? The Memorial itself was a wall, with every ship name and every installation name given. In the centre was a large engraved Starfleet emblem, with the familiar motto engraved below. "Ad Astra Per Aspera – To The Stars Through Hardships." A small notice informed us that a computer panel around the corner carried the full list of the dead and missing.

I scanned the list, seeing so many familiar names. USS Agamemnon; USS Firebrand – her name appeared on both memorials, both ships destroyed in war; USS Odyssey, her name send a shock through me; Deep Space Nine. I lost control, I started to shake, I grabbed at the wall for support, but feeling the name below my fingers made everything worse. That name, those people. So many who died believing me a traitor, so many who thought I had sold them down the river. God, so many who should have been saved. The world spun, I felt arms catching me, tears on my face. My face was wet, why? Why? What was happening? So many names, I felt sick. Distantly I heard voices,

"Calm down, deep breaths, it's OK"

"Medical situation, memorial suite. Two to beam to medical room please"

A tingle, a transporter beam. The memorial wall metamorphosed into a small room, full of various pieces of medical equipment.

"Here, take a seat"

I was guided to a seat by a charming cadet, who waited whilst I sat down then brought me a glass of water.

"I'm sorry about that" I began.

"That's OK, you wouldn't be the first. Many people find the war memorial very upsetting. Were you in the war?"

I held back a sarcastic smile. In the war? I was about as in the war as it was possible to be, serving on the senior staff of DS9. But I couldn't tell this young woman that, she would get suspicious. The stories of the senior staff were well known throughout Starfleet, including my fate. It would not be too hard for her to work out who I was, and then all this would be for nothing.

"Yes, I was." I replied. "I served on the USS Minerva as a nurse. We rounded up the escape pods left from the Battle of Tyra and treated as many as we could."

A lie, yes. But it was not as though I had treated more than my fair share of Federation war victims.

"I see. The memorial must have been very difficult for you." The cadet replied, in a sympathetic, counsellor's voice. "Is there anything else I can get you?"

My opportunity! I began to rummage through my pockets in the pretence of looking for something.

"I think I've lost my small PADD. Did you see it when I came off the transporter? It's very important to me."

"No, I haven't. Let me see if anyone else has it. I'll be back in a second."

She walked outside. I waited until I hear the hiss of closing doors, then seized the opportunity. I mumbled a silent prayer of thanks as I reached for the personal transporter Chakotay had insisted we had all buy as soon as we could afford it. I had reprogrammed it en-route to Earth, finalising the co-ordinate calculations had been the only thing keeping me together in that hydroponics unit. Now I was here, there was nothing for it but to do it. I took one deep breath, stood up and pressed the activation button on the unit. A one shot deal, one transport. Nothing left now but the shouting.

I rematerialised exactly where I wanted to. As the world shimmered back into existence, I could recognise the old officer's mess. It was strange seeing it from this angle. Full awareness returned, and I began to shout. I had very little time.

"I need to see Captain Geordi La Forge, there's an emergency. I need to see Captain La Forge, I need his help."

I repeated over the noise of the alarms, activated by the unauthorised transport. The guards were coming.

"Please help me. I need to see Captain La Forge. Please tell him"

"Intruder Alert, Intruder Alert."

"Please help. I have evidence Captain La Forge needs to see"

Then a new voice

"Freeze."

I turned. A security guard was facing me, phaser in the ready position, uniform looking menacing in the mellow light.

It was all over now. And the fear I felt was overwhelming, consuming. I tried to stand still, but the fear caused me to shake and my phaser trembling was activated. The more I tried to control it, the worse it got until all I could do was focus on keeping my legs locked and myself upright. My arms flailed wildly, everything was out of control.

"Keep Still!" The voice boomed again.

Through chattering teeth, I managed to force a reply.

"I c-can't. This i-is as s-still as I-I can s-stay."

He ignored me.

"This is your final warning"

"I'm t-trying."

Clearly not trying hard enough. I saw the flash from the muzzle of the phaser. There was enough time for the first flash of fear to course through my body before the beam reached me. The sword of stars came slashing down upon me again, and my nerves caught fire. For one endless moment, I thought they had killed me, then the familiar freezing took over and I collapsed to the floor. I wasn't dead, they hadn't killed me. That was my final thought, but I could attach no emotional tag to that.


	11. Chapter 11

I slowly crawled back into awareness, lying on a holding cell slab. My muscles cramped slightly as I pushed myself upwards into a sitting position. I was very weak, there was very little energy anywhere in my body. Slowly I replayed events in my mind, trying to remember where I was, what had happened. I looked down. They had taken my clothing and dressed me in the familiar black uniform. I must have been out for a while after I was shot, either through heavy stun or sedation when I was under. I had no idea where I was. It did not look like a shuttlecraft and I felt no vibrations through my body, so I assumed I was still on Earth or near Earth somewhere.

I stood, hoping to see something which would give me a clue as to where I was. The first step forwards was fine, the on the second, I felt a force pulling me back. I managed another step and a half before I was unable to move forward any more. I was still over an arms length away from the forcefield and still not able to see anything more than what I had seen from my bed. The pulling sensation on my back confused me until I looked down and realised I was wearing some sort of belt. My fingers explored the smooth metal of the belt until they found some sort of emitter attached to the back. A kind of attractor system, constantly pulling me back against the wall.

I fought the sensation for as long as I could, feeling exhaustion growing in my muscles and bones as I stood, seemingly motionless, fighting the unbearable need to move. After what felt like hours, though may only have been minutes, in fact, I surrendered. My muscles were twitching and I was pouring in sweat, fighting the pull. I walked, with as much dignity as I could muster, back to the slab and sat down. Instantly the pressure was gone, and I took a certain amount of relief from that. My relief was tempered with anger and misery, however. I was back. Back in the same old pattern, the small victories, the small achievements, the over-arching loss. Forever, maybe? Unless Chakotay and Kim were successful, because it did not seem like I would be able to alert La Forge now.

Some time passed before I saw anyone in what I assumed was a cellblock. A guard walked towards my cell clutching the familiar bottle and shiny-wrapped ration bars. We made eye contact for a second.

"Where am I?"

I asked. She ignored me, lowered the forcefield and placed the food right on the other side of it, close enough that the field, when it was replaced, would sparkle and discharge when the wrapper crumpled. She stepped back, watching me, waiting for me to try and reach it. I was hungry and thirsty. It had been a long time since I had last eaten. I knew the game she was trying to play, to see me humiliate myself against the attractor devices, but I was hungry and had to try. Of course, as expected the attractor pulled me back before I could reach the food. She watched me eagerly, waiting for me to try again and again, but I did not. Instead I lay down on the slab and wrapped my arms around myself. I was starting to feel a little strange, weak and dizzy. I drifted off into sleep, seeing, as my eyes closed, the guard walk away, unimpressed with my display. I had clearly not been entertaining enough for her. I did not care any more. I did not care that I had no blanket and that the cell was cold. All I wanted to do was sleep. I drifted into black oblivion gratefully.

I awoke with a start. I could feel a hand, pressing against my side, holding me firmly. I was frightened for a moment, but then I felt a hand gently smoothing the hair on my forehead.

"It's OK. Be calm. It's OK now."

The voice was gentle, soothing. I cracked my eyes open a little, the light in the cell burnt into my retinas and a searing pain shot through my skull. The voice belonged to a man in Starfleet Security gold, a guard. I managed to rasp a few words through my parched throat.

"What happened?"

"You went into some kind of neurological shock. I was just about to call for help when you started to come round, Your blood sugars are extremely low. Can you eat something?"

He held out a bottle and a ration bar.

"The replicators down here only make these, I'm afraid."

I took a deep mouthful of fluid, feeling better every second I did so. I no longer felt hollow and dizzy, it was as though I was being poured back into the shell of my own body. I felt grounded again.

"I'm sorry if I frightened you." I said to the guard. I felt genuinely comfortable with him, he was much more respectful and compassionate than the woman from earlier.

"I have phaser induced tardive dyskinesia and associated motor neurone damage. Being shot in the officer's mess combined with being hungry just triggered an autonomic attack. I'm OK now."

I really did not want him calling someone from the medical team down, which was why I explained it. I did not want to see someone else being me, doing what I love and what I was denied.

"How do you know this?" The guard asked me, curiously.

I was confused. Surely he had seen my file, knew my name? Certainly in 53, the Doctor remained on my files, though my medical credentials had been withdrawn with my Federation citizenship. I asked.

"Have you not seen my file? I'm a doctor, well I was. That's how I know."

"No. We don't see anything except a number and very basic information. You're not gong to be here for very long, there's no need for us to know lots of information about you."

I sighed.

"So I'm still on Earth?"

"Yes. A transport's due tomorrow, but I don't know where you'll go." He paused for a second, troubled by something.

"How harmful are phasers? How many times does a person need to be shot before developing problems?" He seemed genuinely surprised and confused that phasers could do damage.

I thought about it, decided to give him an honest answer. If he knew, maybe he would think more about his phaser use, spare someone else from suffering the pain and discomfort I did.

"The damage is only done on heavy stun, when a person is stunned for more than thirty minutes. I only have it because I have been stunned twenty-seven times in two years, that was enough."

He was silent for a moment, troubled by what I said. I could see it in his eyes. I wanted to make a connection with him, to see if he could do anything to help me. The manipulator, out again. I disgusted myself sometimes.

"If you don't mind me saying, you don't seem like an average guard. I've never met one who cared about anyone they were guarding before. Except one, but he doesn't count." I thought of Odo, he had cared, but then he had never been a guard. A lawman, yes, never just a guard.

"I'm not usually assigned somewhere like here. I'm usually on starships, starship security. We, my wife and I, had to come back to Earth for the birth of our baby. She's our first, she was born at twenty weeks. She" he paused, swallowed hard. "She has Yamada X syndrome, but she's fighting. Anyway, I want to be near her and her mother, so I was assigned to here."

I suppose the shock must have shown on my face. Yamada X is a horrible syndrome, genetic in origin, causing severe systemic problems in newborns. Even with the little information he had given, knowing that she was so premature, I knew that the outlook could not be good for the little girl. That must have shown on my face.

"I forgot you were a doctor." The guard said, softly. "You have the same look on your face that all her doctors do. But she's alive, she's alive and fighting."

"I hope she continues to fight." I said, sincerely. "I really do. There's been too much death these last few years, none of us should face any more."

He looked at me strangely, it was a strange thing to say. Prison has a way of messing with a person's mind like that.

I tried to correct myself, to sound more normal.

"What is your daughter's name? I can't do anything else, but I will pray for her. I follow the Bajoran religion, maybe it will help."

He was rising to leave the cell. I suppose that staying so long would be frowned upon by his superiors. But he turned to me after that question.

"Her name's Sophie. Sophie Jane."

"I'll remember" I replied.

"What's your name? I'm trying to remember every person who offers to support her, so I can tell her when she's older."

She was so, so unlikely to ever reach "older" but it wasn't my place to tell him that.

"You really want my name? Are you sure she will want to hear that a war detainee was praying for her?" I was wry, slightly bitter. I sensed that this was an empty gesture on his part.

"My grandmother was a Christian. I know, there aren't many left now, but she was practising up until she died. She used to say that 'to the ears of God, all voices are equal.'"

That brought me up short. I felt shallow, that I had attempted to paint myself as the martyr when a genuine response was all that was required. Sometimes, I was too suspicious.

"My name is Julian" I told him. By the time I had spoken, he was the other side of the field, the other side of the line. But he turned round to face me and nodded solemnly.

"I'll remember."

The conversation, so soon after my attack had left me tired. I rolled over on the slab and slept. Tomorrow they would take me away, tomorrow I would disappear into some anonymous starbase. A few weeks from then, the time bomb would be detonated by Chakotay and Kim and they would send their signal back twenty years, bringing with it glory or desolation. Maybe it wouldn't even touch me, a wave of a temporal anomaly sweeping my cell and washing over me, leaving me sitting on a cell slab forever. I no longer cared, it was out of my hands. The only place it still touched me was in my dreams, I dreamt of freedom, sunshine, wandering through an Earth garden with a beautiful woman. Then seeing the wave cresting the hill, coming across the sky, running from it, screaming, being swept up in a roiling sea of temporal change. I knew it was a dream, but I could no longer wake from it. It had consumed me.


	12. Chapter 12

I awoke, stiff and cold from the slab and the lack of blanket. The pressure from the belt in the night had caused me to sleep awkwardly and all my back muscles screamed in protest whenever I tried to move. I managed to sit up, but that was all I felt I could do.

The guard from last night, seeing I was awake, came over to the field with a ration pack anf bottle. He looked at me oddly. I wondered if he was in trouble for our conversation last night, but then.

"I know who you are."

This was it, the anger, the rejection. A Dominion agent had expressed sympathy with him about his daughter, he would feel so angry, he would probably feel violent. Maybe he would get a quick swing off at me then bring out the dermal regenerator before the transport arrived. It would not be the first time a guard chose to express their disgust at my alleged crimes physically.

"You're Julian Bashir"

I winced, here it came. It could not hurt that much.

"You wrote a paper on nutrition support for Yamada kids. We've been using it as part of Sophie's treatment plan. It's stopped the necrotic reaction in her gut. One of her doctors knew about your work, suggested it. You're saving her life."

I remembered that paper, written just before I started on DS9, when I had been working in the Massachusetts Central Hospital NICU. I knew that it had been used when I was still practising, but I had just assumed that research had moved on so much that my name had been forgotten.

"We owe you everything, and you're here!" the guard announced, an incredulous note in his voice. "You're in here about to be shipped off as a traitor. We heard that something had happened to you, but not this."

He shook his head, then looked at me again.

"When you were fitting, last night. When you started to come round, you were asking for Captain La Forge over and over again. Why?"

"I needed to speak to him about a matter that is very urgent. It was urgent, it isn't now."

The guard was silent for a moment.

"He is on Earth. He used to be my commanding officer, he came to the hospital to see Sophie two days ago. We owe you everything, my wife and I. Maybe I can ask him if he will come here, to see you, to talk to you?"

Hope sparked in my chest. It may still be possible to stop everything.

"Yes, if you would be willing. But I thought I was being shipped out today?"

"The transport's been delayed. It won't be for a couple of days yet. But I'm off shift now, so I will see what I can do."

I tried to stay calm. Agitation would only set off my movements. I touched the point on my leg where the scar was. I could feel the isolinear chip under my skin, like a cancer, a cancer of knowledge which had invaded my brain and caused me to do something so stupid, to put myself back here again.

No person spoke to me that day, and in a way, I was grateful. The new shift guard placed my food within reach, so I ate and drank in an automatic, zombielike way.

After the third meal, Sophie's father returned.

"He is going to come and see you. He will be here in about fifteen minutes. For security reasons, I will have to lock down your attractor belt, so if you have anything you need to do which involves moving around, do it now."

La Forge arrived more quickly than I was expecting and the shock of the belt locking down scared me. It pulled me back against my will and completely irresistibly against the slab, I was sat, back to the wall, emitters touching each other, completely unable to move the main part of my body. It was so uncomfortable. The claustrophobia sprang into my brain again. What if the guard was lying, what if I was already at the starbase and had been condemned to stay pinioned forever, sitting bolt upright against a cell wall? I calmed myself, but it was too late, the twitching had begun again. I must have looked such a state when La Forge appeared in front of my cell.

"I understand you wanted to speak to me" he began.

He looked uncomfortable too. I had met him once, a long time ago, on the Enterprise when I had been analysing an alien device which had activated Data's ability to have dreams. Geordi, Captain La Forge, had been close to Data and we three had spent many hours together investigating Data's dreams. We had been equals, three scientists, three explorers. That was definitely not the case now, but I had one chance to convince him of my story, and I could not afford to waste it.

"Some time ago, about five years, you were commanding the USS Challenger."

"I still do" he replied, very professionally, maintaining a definite distance.

"You might not remember two ex-Starfleet officers captured by your ship attempting to change the timeline. Attempting to send a message back to the USS Voyager."

"I remember."

"They are going to try again. We all escaped from prison together, and they're going to try again with a Maquis weapon. I came to Earth to tell you, so you could stop them. I did this." I gestured with my arms at the cell, at the belt. "So I could tell someone, so I could stop them."

"Do you have any proof."

"It's embedded in my leg. I implanted an Isolinear chip from their PADD in my leg before I set off to Earth. It would have been confiscated any other way."

He turned to the guard.

"Can we get it out, are there medical facilities here?"

"Sickbay" the guard replied "Just down the corridor".

I was cuffed again, this time in a sort of vest arrangement which held my arms across my stomach. A guard in front and behind escorted me to the sickbay, which, similar to the 53 sickbay, contained more security than medical equipment.

"Doctor" La Forge turned to address the medic. I had to fight the impulse to look up as well.

"We believe this man has important evidence hidden on his body, under the skin in his leg. Can you remove it without damaging it or him."

The doctor nodded. 

"Put him on the bed." She gestured to the guards, ignoring me.

They pushed me down to sit, then lie on the biobed. My hands were removed from the vest and restrained on the bed, my feet the same. Trussed up like a turkey, it was terrifying. But she was clean and efficient, and in a couple of minutes, La Forge was assembling the chip into his tricorder and reading the data. He turned pale and addressed the guard in a businesslike tone.

"I need to speak to Internal Affairs. Don't let him be transported until after I've agreed." he ordered the guard, the turned and disappeared.

Back in my cell, I was nervous. A few hours passed. I wanted to move but pacing was impossible with the belt on, however, so I wiggled my legs and flapped my arms when no-one was looking. I knew something had happened when the belt locked me to the cell wall again. A minute or two later, La Forge appeared, flanked by two Internal Affairs people. Senior ones by the look of their uniforms. One of them stepped forwards and spoke first.

"Julian Bashir. As you are no doubt aware, on Stardate 65356, you were arrested on suspicion of espionage. Subsequent investigations revealed sufficient grounds for you to be held by Internal Affairs indefinitely."

They always had to be so formal, so efficient and cold.

"You unlawfully escaped from custody on Stardate 70021 and have been wanted by the Federation ever since. Following your recapture, you should now be taken to re-evaluated at a secure facility. However, based on the evidence supplied by yourself to Captain Geordi La Forge, it has been agreed that a situation exists where your direct input is required to avert a serious incident. Therefore, you will be released to the custody of Captain La Forge for the duration of his mission to recapture Harry Kim and Chakotay, then you will be returned to us once this mission has finished."

So that was that then. The final ending postponed for now. I was removed from the cell, given access to a sonic shower and a fresh uniform, still prison black but clean. La Forge had two of his security officers beam down to accompany me. It all moved very quickly, in the end it was probably five hours or less between the initial conversation and USS Challenger departing for the Badlands with me in a cell in the brig. No belt, much better than wherever I had been. Nobody had ever told me where it was.

The Head of Security had assigned guards to watch me, who turned out to be fairly sympathetic people. For the first time since I had been arrested at Starfleet HQ, I was allowed a PADD and a choice of food. I was given a briefing on the plan. The information on the chip stored in my leg showed that they needed to be in the Badlands as they intended to power the bomb off the plasma discharges. It would take a week to get from Earth to the Badlands, at which point the crew would begin scanning for our old ship. It seemed from what I saw that they really did not know what they might find, the information was so incomplete. They did not know how Harry and Chakotay might integrate the bomb into the signalling device.

Part of me wanted no involvement in all this, but I knew the only reason I had been brought along was my usefulness. If they had not needed me, I would have been en route to a starbase by now. So I read the briefing notes and tried to think of any contributions that would be required.

Three days after we left Earth, when we were about halfway to the Badlands, I was called to attend a senior staff meeting. The guard, Ensign Taylor, apologised profusely to me as he slid the Internal Affairs cuffs on my wrists. It was a very surreal moment. We marched in a small procession, myself, Taylor and Liutenant Harris, up to the Observation Lounge. I had another flashback to that moment on DS9, with Sloan's lackeys marching me to the holding cells. I did not feel the embarrassment this time, though plenty of people stopped to gawk at me along the way. It could have been them, I thought. I had learnt during my time how arbitrary Internal Affairs could be.

In the meeting room, I was uncuffed, though the guards remained hovering behind my chair. I gave all the information I knew about the freighter, its modified weapons and shield systems. When we had done the modifications, I had just assumed it was for protection, it had never occurred to me what they were planning. The Tactical Officer gave all known information about the Maquis time weapon, I explained all I could remember about the configuration of the freighter's warp core, so its signature could be calculated and tracked. The meeting was long and tiring, the only relief came in being uncuffed for it. In handcuffs, the length of time would have been intolerable.

Finally it ended, and the staff were dismissed. I was just rising to face the guards, ready for what was coming, when La Forge said loudly.

"Mr. Tembo, Harris, Taylor and Dr. Bashir. Can you stay please?"

I froze. The officers turned to face La Forge.

"Does Dr. Bashir really have to be handcuffed when he walks through the ship?" asked the Captain to his Head of Security

"Sir," he replied, uncertainly. "It is an Internal Affairs regulation and a condition of his release to us."

"Do you think it's really necessary?"

"No, Sir. Not according to what I have seen on his file, anyway."

"And you two" La Forge turned to address Harris and Taylor. "Do you think it's necessary?"

"No, not really Sir." They replied in unison, looking a little sheepish.

"Then I don't think Internal Affairs needs to hear about it."

And that was the final word on the matter, but from that point on, I was allowed to walk through the ship without handcuffs whenever I was needed somewhere. A small thing, but it made so much difference to me. People still stared, after all, I was still distinctive and it turned out that many of the older Starfleet people had heard bits of my story. The looks were not all hostile, though. I'm not sure I could have carried on if they had been. I had to believe that not everyone hated me, not everyone thought I was guilty.

For the first time, however, I was feeling like a traitor. Not to Starfleet, I knew the truth about that even though the people who mattered did not believe me. No, I was a traitor to Harry and Chakotay. The feeling only deepened as time went on, until the crunch time.

"Bashir to the bridge, please."

I jumped as my name echoed around the brig comm system. Harris was on duty, so I dutifully got up and went with him from the brig to the bridge. As I walked, I felt as though I would vomit with guilt. As we arrived on the bridge, I looked up at the viewscreen. I desperately wanted to see another ship, an innocent ship, but the familiar lines of the freighter appeared in my vision. I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry.

"That's them" I rasped.

La Forge nodded at me, then turned to his bridge crew.

"Status?"

"Sir, there's a strange chroniton discharge coming from the ship."

"Have they begun?"

"I don't believe so, it seems to be just a random stream of chronitons."

"OK, hail them"

The viewscreen chirped into life.

"This is Geordi La Forge of the USS Challenger"

Chakotay's voice came on the screen, he looked tired and worn. The cabin was filled with smoke, the ship was rocking.

"You found us again then? You must know this time we will do it or die trying. No other option."

"And we must do everything necessary to stop you. We must protect the timeline. Who knows what will occur if you successfully change things?"

There was a scuffle on the other side of the viewscreen, and Harry came into view. In contrast to Chakotay, he looked more alive than I had seen him in years. A maniacal gleam lit his eyes. Those gleaming eyes locked on to mine, and I started back, shocked by the intensity of them even across subspace.

"So, you're here? Should have known. We could have made things better for you too! What have they offered you? Release? A more comfortable prison? More precious visiting time?" He spat the words. "You are a traitor! We would have changed everything together. We will do it anyway. You can't stop us now!"

I could not help myself. Each word he spoke was like a blow to me.

"They offered me nothing. I chose to come here, to tell them. You don't know that things will be better, you cannot know. Please stop. Maybe we can solve the problems in this timeline."

"No!" He screamed at me "I killed them once, I will not do it again. We're firing"

The communication disconnected, I stepped back, tears in my eyes.

"I'm sorry" I whispered.

"Sir, the chroniton signature is changing, forming a pattern. Some kind of temporal anomaly wave is being formed from within the ship." The Science Officer reported.

I could see on the viewscreen the light purple wave forming at the edge of the ship, the computer's attempt to put the phenomenon in visual terms. A tendril from a nearby storm had locked on to the deflector shield. This was what had been meant by harnessing the storm to power the temporal wave.

"Sir, the energy emission is becoming stable and coherent. The wave is about to be ejected."

It was moving, I could see it. It would be fired outwards, targeting Voyager. If it was successful, it would then sweep across us all.

"Fire modified photon torpedoes. Target the deflector." ordered La Forge.

The ship shuddered slightly as the torpedoes were released. I tracked the tiny beads of light as they began their inexorable course towards the freighter. The wave grew bigger, changed colour, the ship appeared enmeshed in the temporal anomaly now. Then the torpedoes found their target. The dish exploded, the plasma tendril tore into the unprotected hull, eating through the ship. My last view of the freighter was as the wave collapsed into it, the signal to Voyager unsent. An explosion of bright, white light filled the viewscreen and our eyes, leaving me momentarily blind. Only La Forge, with his computer controlled eyesight was protected.

Once it had cleared and vision had returned, I scanned the screen for a view of the ship. There was nothing, just floating debris. They were gone, it was over. Feeling close to tears, I turned to return to the holding cell. Harris saw me, and turned to go with me. We were both silent. The whole bridge was silent save for the automatic noises of an uncaring computer.

Eventually, the tactical officer spoke up.

"Target destroyed, sir"

I sped up, walked into the turbolift as fast as I could. I could no longer hold myself together. Harris accelerated to match me and we entered the turbolift together. He must have known, though, as he allowed me to turn away from him and cry. It was over now, there was a hollow emptiness inside me that would not be satisfied.

I walked into my cell slowly, reluctantly. There was really no way out now. I had not realised before how much I wanted Chakotay and Harry to succeed, how much I wanted things to be different. I had betrayed them because there had been no choice. My natural abhorrence at the idea of changing the timeline won out over any personal desire I had. But I wanted them to succeed. I wanted things to be different. I knew that, by walking into the cell, I condemned myself to this for my entire life.

Harris sensitively walked away, out of sight. I knew he was still there, but he was trying, doing all he could to respect me. I knew that where I was going, there would be no such respect. My time in 53 had been exhausting, all that unfocussed hate floating around. Their hate of me, my hate of them, the place, the situation.

I reached up my hand and touched the forcefield. I felt it prickle against my skin, try to push me away. I fought it, holding my hand in place. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up from the energy, the lightening crackled around my skin as my palm warmed. I held my hand there for as long as I could, a minute, maybe less. Before I took it away, I swept an arc of light across the field, watching the electrical sparks dance as the field activated.

Back on my slab, I looked at my red, sore hand and an idea formed in my mind. It was stupid, unfeasible. I did it anyway. I had to do something.

Taking my blanket, I tried to tear it. It would not tear. I used my hands, my teeth, but I could not make it rip. I was almost in tears with the effort by the time I gave up. It was hopeless. But the idea remained. I rolled the blanket up and wrapped it around my neck. I knew I would fall unconscious and let go before I died, but I had to try, had to do something. I began to pull. I felt my airway close, I pulled harder, fixated on the idea of how much I wanted it all over. I understood Miles now. I had betrayed my friends, as he had done so many years ago. I wanted it all to be over. Not because I believed in any better afterlife, in that respect I was a poor follower of the Prophets. No, that is not strictly accurate. I believed, but only for other people. I was not deserving, not any more.

The last thing I heard was the sound of alarms, footsteps, a bright flash as the forcefield came down. Then darkness. Sweet, sweet darkness.


	13. Chapter 13

I awoke as a doctor was leaning over me, moving a dermal regenerator over my neck.

"He's waking up, Sir." The doctor reported. I couldn't see who she was speaking to.

I groaned. The doctor leaned over to me

"It's OK. You're going to be fine. I've given you oxygen and I'm just healing the lesions on your neck." Her touch was gentle and compassionate, it made me feel a little better.

She gave me a mild sedative. I did not want it, but I understood her reasons. I fell asleep and must have been under for a couple of hours. I woke feeling empty inside. I would have had another attempt right then if I could have thought of a way to do it, but there was nothing in the cell which I could use. I was sitting, thinking, despairing, when Captain La Forge appeared outside the field.

"I heard what happened. Doctor Tok recommended you see the counsellor, but somehow I thought that might not work for you." There was a slightly sardonic tone to his voice which made me smile. He was right on target about the counsellor, I was not very good at that sort of thing.

"But if you do want to talk about things, if you need an ear, I'm off duty now."

I thought about it. I was frightened of being alone, of seeing everyone walk away and leaving me in this cell. This was the last chance I could speak to someone before the end, before all there was was interrogation and orders, before people stopped being people and became objects of control. I was not, nor ever could be, Captain La Forge's equal, but he was prepared to treat me with respect. He remembered who I had been and did not seem about to judge me for my fall.

"I'd like that." I said, nervously.

He smiled.

"I'll be right back."

I thought he had gone, that he was just mocking me, that I had misjudged him, then I heard his voice, just out of view.

He returned with a plate of sandwiches and a jug of iced tea. He smiled as he lowered the field and entered my cell.

"Do you like cheese? I know you haven't really had a chance to eat much recently" he asked casually.

I smiled and nodded, moving up on the bench so he would have space to sit down.

We both took a sandwich and sat in silence, eating, for a few moments. Then he looked up at me.

"What happens now?" He said, quietly.

"Shouldn't I be asking that question?" I replied, wryly.

"I think you already know. Otherwise you wouldn't have done what you did earlier."

I paused, somehow he had developed that captain's knack of seeing right to the crux of an issue.

"Yes, I do know. You take me back to Earth. Or maybe drop me directly at whichever starbase they have chosen, could be one of three, I think. Then I spend a long, long time behind one of these fields, in one of these boxes. Until I die or am such an old man they can no longer justify holding me and I no longer know who I was, who I am. Until I've forgotten what real air tastes like, what real silence sounds like, how real gravity feels, what real light looks like. What love is, what happiness is. Until I no longer want to be released because I don't know where to go, because my entire life has been defined and controlled by them."

I did not know where those words had arisen from, after so long in silence. But the helplessness of the situation aroused a powerful anger in me, a bitterness, even, though I could not admit it, a dread. I wanted him to understand, I wanted him to realise who it was he worked for, what they could do, what they had done to me, to others. Words began spilling out of my mouth without control, I wanted them to stop, but at the same time, I wanted to continue speaking.

"I didn't do anything. Nothing that justified this. Maybe I was a golden boy for too long, all the advantages, all the genetic superiority that my misguided parents could buy. But I never deserved this! I didn't do anything which justified any of this!" I practically shouted those last words.

La Forge sat in silence. I think I stunned him with my words, my emotion. I have always been seen as a very closed person, not willing to admit my feelings, not wanting to talk. It's true, I suppose. After so many years living a lie, I am afraid to reveal myself. Only sometimes, when it is desperate, when I am desperate. I did it to Sloan when I hit him in the face, I was doing it now.

He asked the question so many had asked or wanted to ask. The question I did not think I could answer, that question that so many voyeurs have asked.

"So why? Why you? What did you do?"

I could not hold it against him. Maybe he had a right to know. After all, he had taken me on his ship on trust, given me privileges that should never have been permitted. Removed my handcuffs when no-one else would. Maybe he needed to know, to understand where I was, where I was going and why.

For the first time in a long, long time, maybe ever, I gave an honest opinion about my situation.

"All this started with the number of days I was held in a Dominion internment camp. No, it's more specific than that. How many days I was held in Isolation in a Dominion internment camp. I have spent thirteen years in prison partly because I fought so much to convince Internal Affairs it was five days when they said it was seven. So, so hard. But really, I don't know if it was five days. It could have been one hundred, though I'm sure it wasn't."

"I don't understand" La Forge replied. It's amazing, he was Geordi when I met him on the Enterprise, but here, he cannot be anyone other than La Forge. Anything else just sounded wrong.

"It was a box. A black box. I couldn't stand up, couldn't stretch out, all I could do was crouch or curl up. They threw in a handful of ration bars, there was a water tap, that was it. I just stayed there, I slept, I woke, I tried not to lose my mind. No day and no night, just black. By the end," I paused. I had never told anyone this.

"By the end I was seeing things, hallucinating. Little people, little things crawling all over my body. I barely knew who I was, let alone how long I had been there. It felt like that was all I had known, I could barely remember anything else other than black and cramping, itchy pain. But they told me it was five days, they all promised me it was only five days. Not only the guards, but everyone. And I can't start doubting that. I have to trust the people I was with, we have to stick together. The only thing that kept me going, keeps me going, is knowing that I am innocent. I can't live with myself if there is any doubt, if there is any possibility that my brain really did record things without my knowledge and transmitted them to the Dominion. I can't live with that uncertainty."

I was a bit shocked at what I had said. I had certainly said too much, after all, Geordi La Forge was still Starfleet, even though he had been a friend a long time ago. But it was all true. My greatest fear had been that the Dominion had altered me in some way. Maybe part of what the Betazoid at 53 had sensed had been this fear, which had been misinterpreted at my hearings. Until the Prophets had told me otherwise, I had been terrified of that change. I had been reassured by my Orb Shadow that I had not been changed, that I was still intact.

La Forge looked troubled. I wondered if he believed me. Would I believe me, if the situation was reversed?

"I don't know." he said finally, after a long pause. "I don't know what, if anything I can do to help, but maybe I can do something, talk to people. I know there are people who opposed the actions of Internal Affairs during the Dominon War. Since having you aboard, I've done some research. You weren't the only one, not by a long shot. There were campaigns, even protests once the war was over."

"Did anyone?" I asked, quietly.

"For you? Yes, some on Bajor, some in Starfleet. I think" he paused slightly, clearly thinking about his wording.

"It was more difficult for you because of your genes. I didn't know at the time, I was too busy fighting, way away from Earth, out of touch, but for a while, your case was very controversial. A doctor, a well-known and well respected doctor, a former POW, locked up by his own side. You had a lot of support. Then someone conveniently." that small sardonic laugh. "conveniently leaked information about your genetic status and everything changed. I'm sorry, that's just the way it was."

I shrugged. It was predictable, I suppose. Even so many years after Khan Noonien Singh, eugenics was still feared and hated. Probably most of the Federation now thought I'd deserved it! This was my choice, I had acted to protect a timeline which wasn't perfect by any stretch, but was tolerable. Maybe not for me, but certainly for Geordi, for so many people who had come back, had survived. It had been worth it.

"I guess this is the end of the line." I sighed, eventually after a silence that had stretched into minutes. I smiled sadly. "I always wanted to be a hero."

Captain La Forge looked at me and smiled.

"I'll make sure people know. Regardless of what happens. Once I know for certain, I'll let you know, but for now, try to sleep."

"I've heard that before." I said, dryly. "Why is it people always say that when the situation is hopeless?"

"I suppose it's a captain's trick. Like the old English cup of tea." Replied Geordi "But the situation isn't hopeless, not yet anyway!"

I nodded.

"But seriously, try to get some sleep. You may need it. Goodnight."

He rose, picked up the plate and iced tea and left the cell. The field sprang up behind him with that familiar flash. It was late, and I was, unaccountably tired. I stretched. It had been nice to have some human company.


	14. Chapter 14

_Geordi,_

I can't deny he left me troubled. He had changed since the last time I had seen him, but then I expected that. You can't go through what he did and not change, I've changed, we all have changed. But I would never have expected him to be so hopeless. So resigned to his fate. It had been a long, long time since we last met, and maybe my memories of that meeting, happy for so many reasons, had clouded my memories of him. There had been all sorts of rumours in Starfleet about him once he had been arrested. DS9 was a very notorious place, there are many people who still argue that we would have never gone to war with the Dominion had the situation been handled better by the staff there, had Starfleet taken control earlier.

But now having met him again, I couldn't believe the rumours. Listening to him talking about Isolation at the Dominion prison camp made me completely unable to believe what I had heard, that he had been working with the camp administration giving them advice about refining better Ketracel White. No, now I had met him, seen him again, seen that tiny spark that had been a raging fire when he had helped Data dream, I couldn't believe the worst of it.

I didn't know what to do for him though. Maybe if it had just been me and him, on a shuttlecraft or runabout, I'd have just dropped him off on a quiet planet, but not here. Not when I had a whole starship of crew to be responsible for and to watch me. There was one person who had been fighting for the rights of those held by Internal Affairs, however, a man who i had a lot of history with.

I smoothed my uniform down and made my way to my desk. Touching my desk terminal, I ordered the computer to open a channel to Jean Luc Picard. There was a short pause as the computer processed and transmitted my request, and I hoped I had not woken the Admiral.

"Geordi. What can I do for you?" His face appeared on my personal screen, looking older, wearier, but still wearing his authority like a cloak. He knew I would not be contacting him over subspace unless it was important, so he skipped the formalities.

"I have someone on my ship who you'd be interested in" I sounded like a second-rate bounty hunter.

Admiral Picard looked quizzical.

"Julian Bashir. The doctor from DS9 who was arrested by Internal Affairs at least fifteen years ago. He escaped, then came back to Earth to warn us about Kim and Chakotay, the two from Voyager who were trying to alter the timeline again. We brought him out here to help stop them, and now we're taking him back to jail."

"I must say, you don't sound very pleased with that task" Jean-Luc replied dryly.

"I've just been speaking to him. He tried to kill himself in the brig and I thought I should speak to him. I know there have been a lot of stories about him, but I don't think he's guilty. He told me some shocking things about his experiences when he was held in a Dominion prison camp, he was so hopeless about the future. It just seems like, well like the Dominion War was a long time ago now."

Jean-Luc was quiet for a while. Then finally he spoke.

"He wouldn't be the only one who was treated badly after their release from Dominion camps."

He sounded bitter, angry.

"I feel so uncomfortable just taking him out and dropping him off at a prison after we're done with him. I didn't tell him, but I've received orders. We're to take him to Starbase 615, near the Odega system. It's got a higher classification than I have access to, but I assume it's another prison." I replied.

Jean-Luc nodded, he seemed to have heard of it, but couldn't not say anything because of the secrecy.

"Let me see if I can find anything out. I will call you again later."

I nodded

"Thank you. Computer, end transmission."

The screen went black. I walked over to the replicator and ordered a cup of coffee, I hoped that Admiral Picard would find something, would be able to help Julian. Whatever hadppedn, I didn't think I would be getting much sleep tonight.

_Julian_

I stretched out on the bench, wrapping myself up in the thin blanket I had been given. I didn't need it for warmth, but it was comforting. The lights had been dimmed, however the forcefield generator still glowed bright white, a bright slash across my eyelids. I sighed. For thirteen years I had slept with that light and never had a problem, but now it nagged at me, kept me awake. Rolling over onto my other side, I found darkness and a measure of peace.

As sleep took me, the same ritual which had occurred every day in 53 started up again. My brain, completely unconsciously, began replaying back my original arrest and detention. It was as though it had never quite processed what had happened, that it had been so much of a shock that my brain was unable to interpret it. The events varied, sometimes my brain would play out what I should have done, escape after the first run of questioning. Other times, Sisko would defend me, he would not say what he said about not knowing if I had been altered, and would instead lower the forcefield, hiding me in the fusion control centre. Once, bizarrely, my brain had me beamed out by a Dominion ship. I just saw the shape of a Vorta as the transporter beam released me, I just realised he was familiar when I woke up, hoping and praying that the Betazoid had not seen the dream.

This time, as most nights, it was the usual events, simple and fast. I was not feeling hopeless enough to need my brain to break them down, clearly. Those nights were definitely the worst, when my brain slowed it all down to a crawl, leaving me plenty of time to analyse and to cringe at my own behaviour. But today was the usual, and I drifted off to sleep anyway. I was tired, there were long days approaching.

_Picard_

I started working straight away. Like many of my generation in Starfleet, I had been very opposed to the detention of Starfleet officers. But, unlike so many of our previous wars, this one had been fought in shades of grey. Not only was there the very real threat of shapeshifters, Changelings, imitating those in power, leading others into their schemes, or the torture that the Dominion had inflicted on some prisoners of war to turn them. No, the most difficult thing about this war had been the minority who had supported the Dominion, who felt that maybe it would be a good thing for the Federation, The "Benevolent Dictator" had always been one of Plato's most beguiling ideas, and it had experienced something of a resurgence as the Federation lost some of what had made it special. However, the number of these Dominion supporters had always been tiny, the risk overstated by Internal Affairs. Julian Bashir had seemingly become one of those who had lost his life, well, any chance of living it, because of the political manoeuvrings of various branches of Starfleet.

I began by contacting my usual "friends, " gathering information. I had never personally encountered Sloan before and knew very little about him, save that Starbase 53 was notorious in the underworld of Stafleet detention policy. Though I did not want to have to wake him, it became clear in the first couple of hours that I needed information from Julian, information I was sure he would have. I wanted to give him the chance to sleep, sleep he would very much need once he arrived at Starbase 615, but this shot at his freedom was far more important. I touched my console and put the call in to Geordi.

_Julian_

I don't react well to being woken suddenly, not since, it happened. As soon as the cell powered up and the lights came on, I was up and in fighting stance. A bit of a joke given how much I was trembling, but I was ready and willing to do whatever I needed to protect myself. It took me a few seconds before I started to listen to the voice at the cell door and relax.

"Julian, it's Geordi. Admiral Picard has been looking into your case and needs some information from you. It's urgent."

He repeated it a few times before I dropped my guard and sat down. He came in and stood in front of me.

"We need to know your initial classification and your final level. Do you still know it?"

I looked at him, totally confused. I had no idea what he was referring to. With slight frustration, he elaborated.

"The initial classification you were given when you arrived, the reasons you were given for your detention. It should have been on the PADD you were given when you first arrived at Starbase 53, then on the information you had after your hearings."

"I was never given a PADD when I arrived." I replied, simply.

Geordi nodded and disappeared. The field went up, but the lights remained on. There was a slight buzz of action in the air.

For the next few hours everything was chaos. Lieutenant Harris came in with a PADD.

"Admiral Picard got it for you." He explained.

On it was a whole load of information about what had happened to me. I flicked through it , it was a very Starfleet document, information that I needed to know about my detention, my rights, etc. I gathered that I should have received it right at the beginning, but I had not.

The part I was drawn to was the very top of the document. I read through it again.

"Name: Julian Subatoi Bashir.

Number: EC109557/78D; 66715/66724 IA; FM998710167534/R N/R

Primary Classification: RED – High Risk (please refer to documentation for further information)

Additional Clasification: SN1; A20; ER - HIGH

OIC: Sloan, L – Deputy Director, Internal Affairs

Overseeing Officer: Tim'Anna – Admiral, Internal Affairs"

Most importantly, the document explained the guidelines for keeping me in detention.

"An immediate and serious threat to the security of the interests of Starfleet, the Fedration and or their immediate allies."

I sat reading through it. More documents came, documents from my hearings which I should have seen. I had not known, but when you reached a certain level, you were supposed to be transferred into the normal Federation justice system. What I gathered during the ensuing hours was that Admiral Picard was attempting to demonstrate that I had reached that point several years before, and that all this should be brought to a close.

After about seven or eight hours, in which time I had received five PADDS and several updates, Captain La Forge came to see me. He looked tired, he had been up all night doing this.

"There may be a compromise. If you are willing to sign a statement to the effect that you have never supported the Dominion and never assisted them beyond the aid which you rendered to any being as a doctor, they will consider charging you with unwittingly assisting the enemy and you can go. Not back into Starfleet, obviously, but as a civilian, back into the Federation."

I paused.

"There has to be something more. It can't be that straightforward."

La Forge was quiet for a second. It was clear that he had to say something he did not want to.

"You would also need to issue a statement saying that you were held in Internment Camp 371 for 37 days, not 35 and that you have no memory of those two additional days. You."

He paused again,

"You would also be required to state that you had been misguided in providing medical aid to the Jem'Hadar."

I was silent for a long time. I would gladly sign anything which stated that I had never supported the Dominion. I could even accept signing to say it had been 37 days, not 35. The people it would have hurt would pretty much all be dead now, those who weren't, well, I was sure they'd understand. It was just the last one I was stuck on.

It would be so easy. I'm not a doctor now, I never will be again. I would not discredit myself professionally by signing, there was nothing left to discredit.

"I need to think about it." I said. A small voice was telling me not to do this, not to sign. It was the same small voice I used to listen to when it told me to treat patients who I found disgusting like the Jem'Hadar, the same voice which told me not to give the Lethean that biomimetic gel.

After a long pause, in which I fought a bitter internal battle, I was ready to answer.

"I can't. I can't say I was misguided. When I first became a doctor, I stood before my peers and promised not to allow race or any other factor to come between my duty and my patient. I'm not a doctor now, well, I can't practice, but who I was, the best part of me is all tied up with medicine. I can't turn my back on it now."

Geordi looked at me for a moment, then nodded.

"I don't think I expected anything else." He replied, then left.

I hadn't noticed until that moment that he had become Geordi again.

_Picard_

I protested that the demand was unreasonable. After having spent thirteen years trying to interrogate an admission out of him, to force him to trade a confession for his freedom was deeply wrong. But his refusal pleased nobody, and did not help his cause.

I kept trying. I filed procedural irregularity appeals, pushing every contact I had to keep things moving. The more I had been digging, the stranger the situation had got. I was certain that this was a lot more to do with Bashir's genetic modifications than any Dominion involvement. For about an hour, I thought we were making real progress. It had got back right to the top of Internal Affairs and Starfleet Security. All the way to Admiral Nachayev, who had overall oversight for Starfleet Security. We have had a turbulent relationship before the war, when she was my superior, and she had always been tough.

My console beeped, signalling an incoming message. Her face appeared on my screen, looking older, wearier, but still commanding. Somewhere way back in her ancestry, she had Vulcan blood, hence her longevity, but, like all of us old-timers, she had grown old during the bitter war, the betrayal of all our dreams.

"Jean Luc" She greeted me solemnly "I have not seen you for a few years. Retirement treating you well?"

"Yes, quite well." I nodded.

"I understand you have been making enquiries about an Internal Affairs detainee; Julain Bashir?"

"Yes, that's right. I was asked to look into his case as he is about to be returned to detention in the next few hours. I'm attempting to have his case reviewed. The evidence against him seems very flimsy to have him held for so many years as a red threat."

Admiral Nachayev looked grim.

"I have reviewed his case several times myself. I have even been present at one of his preliminary hearings, just to be certain that we were doing the right thing. I, along with almost all of senior Starfleet command feel that he is just too dangerous. Too much of a risk to Starfleet and the Federation."

I was shocked at this comment.

"Is that because of his relationship with the Dominion or his genetic status?" I asked.

"Strictly off the record, and because we go back a long way, I'll tell you. It's his genetic status. At first there was plenty of suspicion about him and the Dominion, there is a lot of evidence, well there was at the time. It is true that his initial detention was because of genuine suspicions about his relationship with the Dominion. But as part of processing when he arrived at 53, blood samples were taken. And what they showed was terrifying, horrifying. He isn't just as perfect as Khan Singh, he's made better, stronger. He can't be allowed to live free, the consequences could be dreadful. Worse than the Dominion War."

"But Starfleet already knew. His father had already been arrested and convicted."

"We didn't know how extreme the modifications were, the information we were given was erroneous. I'm sorry Jean Luc, I know that the issue of IA detainees is one you feel strongly about, and I know that you have enabled the release of several. But not him, he's too dangerous. I'm sorry."

"I'll carry on campaigning for him." I replied.

"I don't think you will have very much success." She said, calmly. "Computer, end transmission."

I sat for a couple of minutes, sipping on my now-cold tea, postponing the inevitable.

"Picard to Challenger. Captain La Forge"

"Geordi here, Sir."

"I'm sorry Geordi, I've just heard, right from the very top of Starfleet. There's nothing more to do, his last appeal has been overturned. I thought I should let you know, you're still a couple of hours away, he'll have time for a shower, a meal. A little comfort, before..."

Geordi nodded.

"I suppose I was expecting it. Thank you though. Maybe we'll catch up properly when I get back to Earth."

"I'd like that" It was genuine. I'd always had a soft spot for Geordi La Forge. He was a good man, an honest man.

_Geordi_

It was time. I had to tell Julian. I made a few arrangements before going to the Brig, I didn't want to just cut him loose with nothing. It seemed no time at all before I was standing outside the main door. I took a deep breath, prepared myself.

"Julian. I'm sorry, they've turned down your final appeal." Short and simple, I couldn't think of any way of dressing it up.

He looked into the middle distance, staring at the small flickers at the edge of the forcefield. He bit his lip and his eyes narrowed, until they scrunched up and his head fell onto his chest.

Finally he took a deep, shuddering breath and looked straight at me.

"Thank you anyway." He said, solemnly. "I knew it would be a long shot."

"We're a couple of hours away from Odega. I though you may want a shower, some food."

He nodded.

"A shower would be appreciated." He replied, smiling a faint half smile.

_Julian_

I suppose I should have known. Should never have allowed myself to get my hopes up, but it was a hard blow. For a few hours I had dared to dream beyond this place, back into the stars, but that was all over.

I walked with Geordi to the guest quarters he'd arranged for me to shower in. They were clean and sterile, as I expected, but he did leave me alone after putting a field up across the door.

I was able to follow all my own rituals in the bathroom, it was a very small slice of heaven. A shave, a chance to stretch out, then into the sonic shower. All showers have an automatic acoustic limiter. Without it, human skin can get horribly burned. I remember one Starfleet Cadet cooking himself in his shower to try and avoid being sent out to the front line. For days he cried on a biobed as his skin sloughed off, then when he finally recovered, horribly scarred, he was medically cleared and shipped out anyway. At 53, the shower had been so limited that you never felt clean, always greasy.

This shower was perfect, low pitched, relaxing, warm. I felt my muscles relax as the soundwaves pounded them gently. I stood in the booth for an hour, feeling the beat of the sound against my body, soothing. When I finally came out, a new uniform was on the bed waiting for me. It was still black, it was still terrifying, but at least it was clean. There was also a note stating that the replicator was working and I could have something to eat if I wanted. I appreciated the thoughtfulness of being left alone, it was just what I needed. I sat on the bed in silence, eating scones with fruit jam, sipping tea and staring out of the window at the stars flying by.

I knew it was time when the planets swung into view, and I was already dressed and waiting when Geordi and the two security officers came to the door. One put the restraints on my wrists.

"We will need to transport you by shuttle" he explained "the transporters are currently offline."

I went with him to the shuttle and was loaded on. It was just me and Lieutenant Harris now, on my final journey. I watched through the windows as the shuttle cleared the docking bay, remembering a journey long ago.


	15. Chapter 15

The restraints were tight around my wrist for this final journey, and , as expected, the panel in front of my chair was powered down. I sat silently, watching the planets as we advanced towards the menacing shape of the starbase. I was trying to take it all in, to remember it all. Suddenly, Harris turned to me.

"You'd better hold on" he muttered, under his breath,

I smirked slightly

"With what?" I replied,

He glanced across

"Damn, I forgot. Well, just try to brace!"

I did not understand. Then I heard the beep of the comm.

"Shuttle One to Challenger, warp core error. We are losing containment!"

I was puzzled, no alarms were sounding. Usually, the panel should be screaming at such a catastrophic event.

"Challenger to Shuttle One. Status report."

"Challenger. Containment at 20 and falling, warp core fluctuations in progress. Emergency transport?"

"Negative, Shuttle One. All transporter systems offline."

Then, on the same frequency,

"Challenger to Starbase 615. Emergency in progress. Our shuttle is experiencing containment failure, can you assist?"

"615 to Challenger. We are sending out a support craft. We have no transporter systems which extend that far."

My confusion grew. The shuttle did not seem like a ship about to be destroyed. We were shaking about, yes, but not very dramatically.

"Shuttle One to Challenger. Inertial Dampening Field failure in 20 seconds."

Harris turned to me again and muttered.

"Brace as best you can."

"Shuttle One, Inertial Dampener failure."

The shuttle lurched into a spin. I tried to hold on, tried to brace, but it was no good. I fell from the chair and hit my head hard on the side of the panel. A white flash, which I was sure was the destruction of the ship and I felt nothing more.

I lurched back into consciousness some while later. At first I thought I was dead, but the idea of being dead and coming back into a shuttle, identical to the one I had been in when I was alive, was just too strange. Something else must have been going on, I decided. There were warp stars flashing outside the window, streaking apst.

I tried to stay silent. Who was "Harris?" I had been kidnapped twice in my life already and it had always been awful. Was this the third time? How worse could it be than the other two? I must have groaned, or twitched or something, because he turned to look at me.

"It's OK. I'm not a bad guy." he said in a soothing voice. The pain in my head flared again and the white light behind my eyes burst into me again. I must have collapsed.

This time, when I regained consciousness, someone was wiping my forehead with a damp cloth. It felt wonderful. I opened my eyes and looked around. I was lying on a biobed, with a doctor standing over me. She was wearing a standard medical jumpsuit in light blue with a white patch on the chest. On the patch was a red cross. I realised where I was. The Red Cross was an ancient Human organisation, superseded by Starfleet. I had not even realised they still existed.

"Where am I?" I asked, mumbling slightly

"On the RC Hephestia. We're a medical ship taking supplies to the old DMZ worlds."

"I don't understand. Who are you?"

"This a Red Cross ship. We supply medical expertise and equipment to worlds that need our help, since Starfleet cut down its operations in this area, we've expanded from an organisation that just worked in a few remote refugee camps to work across the old DMZ sectors. We also take care of some of the war veterans who can't return to the Federation, for whatever reason."

I must have looked particularly confused at this. The idea that Starfleet had abandoned some of its war veterans seemed very alien. Harris saw my confused face, as he glanced over.

"Doctor, you must know the ones I mean, those who never quite readjusted back. People like my father."

And he was right, of course. As I adjusted to life, first on the Hephestia then on Archa III, I met these people. All sorts of people with all kinds of stories. I was not alone, maybe I had been through some of the most extreme treatment, but there were so many of us on the fringes of society. People whose entire life choices had been taken away from them, people who spent their whole life playing a role that they never wished. The dreams we'd been sold as children had gone sour, the new universe which had been our inheritance was sullied.

But I still had medicine, and it filled such a hole in my being. As I got older, my dyskinesia got progressively worse. I could no longer safely treat people myself, but my brain was still intact. I could still plan, administer, research. I led programmes to see the children of the old DMZ vaccinated. I discovered the treatments which saved some of those dying from chronic plasma and radiation poisoning.

Sloan took everything from me, or tried to. What should have been the best times of my life, my career, my friends, my hope for a relationship and for love, even the control over my own body. But I did not lose my ability, and I have not. And I hope that the many lives I have saved have outweighed the death of Harry and Chakotay.

There is one more thing to be done, when it is time. In the corner of my lab there is a piece of equipment no doctor would recognise as belonging. In fact, I think the only person who would know it on sight would be Miles. He should do, he taught me how to construct it. A matter transporter, modified slightly. When I can no longer carry on, when my body finally collapses, I will step into it and beam myself across the galaxy. I will not let them take my body, they will not have me in death as they tried so hard to have me in life.


End file.
